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I BROUGHT YOU SOME BU^FUL FLOWERS. 




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Page 26 





NUMBER ONE 


OR 


NUMBER TWO 


BY 




MARY E> BAMFORD 


AUTHOR OF 


Father Lambert' s Family^ A Piece of Kitty Hunter's Life^ Thoughts on 
My Dumb Neighbors, etc. 







NOV J.3 

3 vw' 






NEW YORK: HUNT b> EA TON 
CINCINNA TI: CRANSTON STOWE 
1891 


■'Bsz I 


Copyright, 1891. by 

HUNT & EATON, 


New York. 


NOTE. 


The Hebrew quotations used in this book were taken by 
me from the Prayers of Israel, the ceremonies men- 
tioned I have witnessed in a Jewish synagogue. Readers 
wishing to know more of Joseph Rabinowitz are referred 
to an article by Bishop John F. Hurst, D.D., LL.D., in the 
Chautauquan of January, 1885. 






NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 


HADASSAH AND I. 

July 7. — Nellie R. Merritt.” 

“ Present.” 

‘‘Take the third seat in row C.” 

That is what I heard this morning. We of 
the new junior class of the high-school were hav- 
ing seats assigned. The first day of school is 
always a mixed up one, and I had time to look 
around awhile before the rest of the scholars 
were attended to. 

“ Do you like it ? ” 

That is what a girl next me whispered. I did 
not know her, but that was not the reason I 
did not answer. It was because it is against 
rules to communicate with one another during 
school hours, and I don’t think it is right to 
break rules. I hardly ever broke them before I 
joined the church, and now I think it would be 
setting a worse example than ever. 

I put my finger up to my lips. 

“ Nonsense ! ” said the new girl, impatiently. 


6 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“ I hope you are not one of the fussy kind. 
Where have you been to school to get so good? 
Do you suppose that woman up there, that Miss 
Towne, as they call her, is going to snap us up 
the very first day if we talk a bit? You just 
wait till you see how I can send notes, and tele- 
graph and talk with my fingers. There’s no 
keeping me still, rules or no rules.” 

“ Order in row C,” said a voice from the desk, 
and that girl did stop talking, after all. 

There are about forty of us, and we are to 
have four teachers for the different lessons. All 
the high-school teachers do not teach the juniors. 
But whoever teaches, I am going to stand head 
of this class. I settled that in my mind before I 
came into this building. I have always stood 
“head” in the grades, and I’m not going to 
drop to Number Two, or any other number, 
even if the high-school studies are harder. 

July 14. — They are harder, a great deal. I 
have to study all the time. There are two or three 
girls who think they are going to be Number One, 
but they will find themselves mistaken. 

August 7. — I am, I am Number One at last! 
The scholars were surprised, but they don’t know 


HA DA SS AH AND I. 7 

me very well. Ninety-seven per cent. ! Isn't that 
good ? 

It seems to me that if I were a minister’s wife 
I should just leave it to my husband to look 
after the church members. I wish Mrs. Gardner 
wouldn’t be so personal. Clara Wilson and I 
were the only ones at her house Saturday. It 
was the day for studying the Sabbath-school 
lesson, and some way Mrs. Gardner brought into 
it something about giving God part of our 
time. 

I was not paying very good attention, but I 
did hear her say : “ If we think that we are go- 
ing to serve the Lord all the time, we may have 
a general sort of meaning to do so, and yet, hav- 
ing no definite plan, we may not accomplish 
much. I think it is best, for young church mem- 
bers especially, and for older ones, too, to have a 
portion of the working days set apart for his 
service. Suppose you take Wednesday night 
and resolve that that shall be your time when 
you will regularly attend the prayer- meeting and 
try to gain strength in that way.” 

She looked at me as she spoke, and I know I 
turned red. 

The fact is, I have not been to a Wednesday 
night prayer-meeting for a month. Why, how 


8 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

can I ? Don’t I study every minute I can get 
after school hours till eleven and twelve o’clock 
at night? And then I drop into bed so tired 
that I wake up in the night from dreaming that 
I am doing some example or reciting some Latin 
list of prepositions. I jump up in the morning 
and study while breakfast is getting ready, and I 
read over my lessons in the buggy going to 
school. But with all my trying I think it will 
be hard work to hold my place as Number One. 

All this ran through my mind as I saw Mrs. 
Gardner’s eyes fixed on me, and I grew redder 
and redder, till I broke out before I thought, and 
said : 

“ Do you mean that I ought to give up study- 
ing Wednesday nights and come to prayer-meet- 
ing instead ? ” 

“Don’t you think so yourself?” asked Mrs. 
Gardner, smiling a little. “ Is it right for a 
Christian to neglect prayer-meeting altogether ? 
Couldn’t you stand a little lower in your class, if 
it need be, and take that as your cross ? ” 

Well, I did not answer. I wish she wouldn’t 
ask me such questions. Why, it would be the 
awfulest, heaviest cross that I ever bore in this 
world for me to be Number Two ! Don’t you 
know that. Journal? Now, when the report- 


HA BASS AH AND /. 


9 


cards for last month were handed around to our 
desks Della Wolfe ran up to me after school, so 
happy that she fairly hopped, and she cried out : 
“ O, Nellie, just think. I’m next you! I’m 
Number Two. I never expected to be so high 
in this class.” 

And I pretended to be glad with her, but all 
the time I was thinking how foolish she was to 
be glad over such a thing. Why, I should have 
sat down and cried if I had been any thing but 
Number One. 

Besides, I don’t like to go to prayer-meeting 
very much! I might just as well write that 
down as think it, I suppose, only it looks rather 
queer in a church member’s journal. I don’t 
mean that I don’t like to hear folks speak and 
pray, but the trouble is that there are not usual- 
ly more than two dozen people there, and we 
are all expected to speak. And I do think that 
it is very hard to get up and talk in meeting. 
There are only three or four of us young folks 
who go, and I almost always wait till pretty near 
the end of the meeting, and Mr. Gardner says : 
“ Hasn’t somebody else a word to say? ” And 
I can feel his eyes looking at me, even if I don’t 
look up ; and I know that if I don’t speak he 
will come along after meeting and hold out his 


lo NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

hand and say, so kindly : ‘‘ Didn’t you have any 
word for us to-night, Nellie? How are you get- 
ting along, child ? ” 

And then I turn as red as possible and wish I 
had stayed at home or had spoken, one or the 
other, because I have not the shade of an ex- 
cuse, and it is so horribly embarrassing. 

But this idea of Mrs. Gardner’s, that I ought 
lo let studying go Wednesday nights ! 

You brought it on yourself,” Clara said, after 
we left the parsonage. “ What possessed you to 
ask her that question if you didn’t want such an 
answer ? She wouldn’t have said what she did 
if you hadn’t said what you did. Now she 
will be expecting you to go to meeting every 
Wednesday night.” 

No ; I can never do that. I really could not 
endure to be Number Two. 

August 21. — Even my school-teacher must be- 
gin to give me advice. I have had the blues 
dreadfully lately at school. You see. Journal, 
we girls were promoted to the high-school from 
schools all over the city, and there was but 
one other girl of my class promoted with me. 
There were three boys, but boys don’t count. 
Well, my girl has gone away from school. She 


HADASSAH AND /. 


II 


isn’t coming back any more, so I am all alone. 
I can’t get acquainted, either, very well. 

It isn’t my fault. I am bashful. I always 
have been. I remember that once when I was 
a little girl I went to an old lady’s house on an 
errand, and the old lady had two visitors, and 
she said to me right before them : “ I wont in- 
troduce you because you are so bashful, but I’ll 
tell you their names.” 

As if th^t speech wasn’t enough to make 
me feel ten times more bashful than I should 
ever have thought of being if she had not said 
any thing ! Well, that authentic incident is re- 
corded in my brain, and stands to prove that 
what I said is true. I am bashful, and always 
have been. 

So, as I don’t know any of the girls, I have 
been used lately to taking my lunch and going 
out into the yard at noon to eat it by myself. 
The other girls stay up stairs in the school-room 
and eat in little crowds. 

But to-day, as I was passing out of the school- 
room, with my lunch-basket in my hand, Carrie 
Wood, one of the tall girls that sit in the back 
part of the room, ran after me, and said : 

“ Wont you come and eat your lunch with us 
to-day? ” 


12 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“ No, I guess not,” I answered ; I am going 
into the yard.” 

But as I passed by Miss Towne’s desk she 
called to me. 

Why don’t you stay and eat your lunch with 
the other girls ? ” she asked, pleasantly. 

Miss Towne is almost always a pleasant 
teacher. 

“ I like to eat it in the yard,” I said. 

“ But you ought to get acquainted,” she an- 
swered, “and noon is almost the only time you 
have for that. You are rather lonely since Mat- 
tie left, are you not ? ” 

“ Yes’m,” said I. 

“Nellie,” said she, “you are a Christian, are 
you not ? ” 

“Yes,” I said again, wondering very much 
how she had guessed it, and what in the world 
that had to do with lunch. 

“ I thought so,” said Miss Towne. “And you 
want to try to do every day what will please our 
Saviour, don’t you ? May I tell you what I 
heard one of the girls say about you the other 
day ? ” 

“Yes’m,” I said again. 

“ I don’t mean to tell you any thing that will 
hurt your feelings, and I do not usually repeat 


HADASSAII AND 1, 


the girls’ speeches to one another,” went on Miss 
Towne ; “ but I think Christians ought to say 
something if they see each other making mis- 
takes, don’t you? Well, this girl said : ‘ Nellie 
doesn’t care for any thing but books. She 
doesn’t care a single bit for any one of us.’ 

*‘Now, Nellie, I am sure you do not feel that 
way. No Christian has a right to care nothing 
for others. Carrie invited you very kindly. Go 
back to her, wont you ? ” 

“ I don’t want to,” I said. 

The noon hour was slipping away and I felt 
cross. Why need Miss Towne interfere ? 

“ It is the right thing to do,” she said. And in 
a minute she added : “It is the Christian thing 
to do, Nellie. You came here to the high- 
school not only to study, but to set an example 
to others.” 

I stood there a minute, my cheeks just blazing. 
I knew I had not come for that second purpose 
at all. I had never thought about that. 

Well, I knew I had to say something, so after 
standing like a goose for about two minutes I 
answered : “ I’ll try, Miss Towne,” and I wheeled 
around and walked down the aisle and sat down 
among the rest. 

And if one of those girls didn’t go and ask me 


14 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

for a doughnut ! My one doughnut that I had 
been hungry for all the morning. For my ma, 
my blessed ma, who is always wearing herself 
out for her children, said to me this morning : 
“ Nellie, I have only one doughnut left. I’ll put 
it in, and fry you some more to-day.” 

Well, Hadassah got that doughnut. But I 
was disgusted. 

Isn’t Hadassah a funny name ? It means 
myrtle,” I believe. That is what the Bible dic- 
tionary says. She is the new girl that has just 
come to school lately. There ! that’s “ tautology,” 
I know. We’ve had it in composition class lately. 

Well, Hadassah is new, and I believe she’s a 
Jewess. I guess she doesn’t believe in much of 
any thing, though. She says that she hasn’t any 
folks, only a father. 

I tell you. Journal, that I’m afraid of Ha- 
dassah. She’s dreadfully smart! She can see 
straight through an algebra example that would 
make me fret and fume for hours. If Hadassah 
should become Number One! But she sha’n’t, 
she just sha’n’t ! I’ll hold on to that if I have to 
study all night, Wednesday night and every 
other, except Sunday, of course. For I didn’t 
come to this high-school to set an example, if 
Miss Towne does think so. I came here to 


HADASSAH AND /. 


15 


study — to fill my head full of all I can learn, and 
to stand at the head of my class. And I do wish 
that folks wouldn’t bother me any thing about 
my “ example! 

September 4. — I am Number One again. Our 
Latin teacher is a funny man. He is tall and thin 
and awkward. He has queer, bony fingers, and 
I am the pride of his heart. 

I know I am, for he marched up to my desk 
after the last written examination in Latin, and 
he said : “ Nellie, I am proud of you ! ” 

I was proud of myself, too, only it wouldn’t 
have done to say so. But I had seventy-four 
out of seventy-five credits on that remarkable 
examination paper. 

But the thmg that man likes best to have me 
do is to get up before the class and recite the list 
of prepositions that govern the accusative case. 
I know the whole tw'enty-nine so that I can rat- 
tle them off like a parrot, from ad^ adversus^ down 
to idtra, versus. Likewise the prepositions gov- 
erning the ablative, from ab down to tenus. I 
can say them the way I used to rattle off “ Peter 
Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” and 
the sound seems to be music in Professor Bor- 
land’s ears. 


1 6 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

September 13. — Revival-meetings are being 
held in a church not very far from the high- 
school. A good many people have been con- 
verted, and crowds go there. Mr. Gardner is 
very much interested, and goes all he can. He 
wants our church to go too, so a good many do. 

Yesterday morning Hattie Brown and I were 
taking off our cloaks in the girls’ dressing-room 
when Nina le Page came in. We three were all 
that were there. 

O, what shall I do ? What shall I do ? ” 
Nina cried, tragically. 

Nina is somewhat given to sensational excla- 
mations, so we girls were not so much scared as 
we might have been. 

“What’s the matter now?” asked Hattie, as 
she hung up her hat. 

“ My brother, my darling brother Harry ! ” 
moaned Nina, dropping down into a chair and 
grasping frantically at her rubbers. 

“ What’s the matter with him ? ” asked Hattie, 
impatiently. 

Hattie never does know how to endure Nina. 

“ He’s been to those meetings,” groaned Nina, 
rocking back and forth with her vexation. “ He’s 
been there lots of times, and folks have talked 
to him, and he’s been ‘converted,’ so he says, and 


HADASSAH AND /. 


17 


he's going to join the church. 0, misery ! and 
Nina pretended to wipe her eyes. 

“You wicked girl!” said Hattie, indignantly. 
“ What an awful way to talk 1 I should think 
you would be glad enough to have him a Chris- 
tian.” 

“Should you?” asked Nina, sarcastically, as 
she rose and began to pull out her curls before 
the glass. “ Well, why don’t you go and be one 
yourself, Hattie Brown, if you think it’s so nice ? ” 

flattie turned as red as fire. 

“Iff don’t do right myself I hope I am glad 
when other folks do,” she answered, stiffly. “If 
I don’t go to heaven I don’t want to keep other 
folks from going there,” and Hattie took her 
books and marched up stairs. 

Nina turned to me with a laugh. 

“ Don’t you think it spoils folks to be re- 
ligious?” she asked. “ Now I shall never have 

O 

a bit more of good times with Harry. Why, last 
night he actually began to talk to me about my 
sins, as if he were a deacon and I were one of 
the folks who deserved to go to jail ! Why can’t 
he let those horrid meetings alone ?” 

Then, of course, I had to stand up for religion 
some way, for my conscience wouldn’t let me 

be quiet. And I said : “ They are very good 
2 


1 8 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TIVO ? 

meetings, Nina. I have been to them a good 
many times, and I liked them very much. You 
had better go and see, before you condemn them.” 

Nina looked at me with scorn. 

“ Are you a good one, too ? ” she asked. One 
of the church members, likely as not. I must 
say I never should have suspected it.” 

“ I am a church member, and a Christian, I 
hope,” I answered. I did not say it very loudly, 
for I couldn’t. I felt too hurt by what she said. 

“ Well, therr. I’ll tell you one thing, Nellie 
Merritt,” said Nina, vehemently, turning on me 
in her wild fashion, “ I came pretty near being a 
church member once, too. Yes, I did. You 
needn’t look so astonished. My father and 
mother are regular pillars in the little church on 
the corner here. And I thought I was a Chris- 
tian, but I found out that I wasn’t. And I don’t 
believe in it, and I wish Harry wouldn’t go into 
any such humbug. And what made you go near 
the meetings after what Principal Thorn said? 
Don’t you believe in obeying your teachers? ” 

“I don’t think he meant the meetings,” I 
answered. 

But Nina ran off. 

What Principal Thorn said was, that he hoped 
that the scholars would not go out evenings, but 


HADASSAH AND I, 


19 


study their lessons faithfully at home. He had 
noticed that some of the girls often came to 
school with their hair all braided up in fine little 
braids, or done up in curl-papers, because they 
were going to some party in the evening. And 
Principal Thorn didn’t like it. He made one 
girl go out and take her hair all down and fix it 
decently. I don’t wonder. She did look like a 
fright before with so many curl-papers on. And 
it was that day that Principal Thorn opened the 
folding-doors between all the rooms and made 
us the speech Nina referred to. He said that 
those girls who went out to parties all the time 
never had their lessons, and he wound up by 
saying: “ Don’t go out at all. Don’t go to any 
thing. Now is the best time you will probably 
ever have for studying.” 

But when he said “ any thing ” I am sure he 
did not mean the revival-meetings, for Principal 
Thorn is a church member. I suppose that he 
forgot all about the meetings, he was so tired 
with those girls. 

But it was just like Nina to pretend that he 
meant the meetings, too. She is always watch- 
ing for Christians’ sins ; I have noticed that. 

But as I went up to my school-room I could 
not help feeling very uncomfortable after that. 


20 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

To think Nina should say that she should never 
have suspected that I am a Christian ! 

It is that old thing over again that Miss Towne 
said that day. “You came here to this high- 
school not only to study, but to set an example 
to others.” 

Do I have to “ set an example ” whether I want 
to or not ? 

September 20. — I don’t see why Lucille Whit- 
ney has to act so jealous of me about the French 
class. She is very silly, I think. We had a 
written examination in French on Friday, and 
Miss Towne asked Lucille to write the exam- 
ination questions on the blackboard, where all 
the school could see them. 

“Don’t ask me^^ said Lucille, almost rudely ; 
“/don’t know any French. Tell Nellie Merritt 
to do it. She’s the only one of us who knows 
any thing.” 

And Miss Towne looked surprised and turned 
to me inquiringly. She did not say any thing, 
though. She handed me the questions without 
a word, and I wrote them off on the blackboard. 

It was so foolish in Lucille. Just because she 
used to be Professor Sabli^re’s pet pupil in 
French, and now she is afraid that I am taking 


I/ADASSAI/ ANV 7 . 


2 £ 

her place. She needn’t have shown it out so 
openly, though. Of course, she talks French 
faster than I do ; she studied it before. 

But Professor Sabliere unfortunately said to 
her in the class the other day: Mees Lucille, 
you talk French, but I could know you are one 
Americaine. It is French, but the pronounce is 
Americaine.” 

And, when my turn came, he praised my 
reading in that little primer ! 

It is only because I followed the rule that he 
gave us awhile ago. He said we were to take 
our primers and mark the pronunciation and 
the omitted vowels till we were sure we knew 
how to say the words correctly, and then we 
were to take each sentence separately and say it 
over and over out loud, a hundred times if need 
be, until we could say it smoothly and without 
difficulty. In that way he thought we should 
do it well. 

I suppose Lucille don’t take the bother. She 
relies on what she knows already, but it is all 
new to me. Some of those sentences I have 
said over as many as two hundred times, I guess, 
and Professor Sabliere sees that I try very hard. 
So he is pleasant to me, but Lucille need not be 
so jealous. / can’t help it. 


22 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TIVO? 

October 4. — Mr. Gardner said six or seven 
months ago, before I ever came to this high- 
school, when I had not belonged to the church 
more than a month or two, that he wished, just 
before every communion, those of us who are 
new members would read over the twelfth chap- 
ter of Romans and apply it to ourselves. 

“That chapter is a good one to examine our- 
selves by,” he said, “ and see whether we have 
made any progress in our Christian life.” 

Well, however much I hurry over my Bible- 
reading usually — and often I just read a few 
verses because I’m so hurried over the studying 
that I haven’t time for more — yet before every 
communion I have managed to read over that 
twelfth chapter of Romans, because Mr. Gardner 
said that he did not think that we were fit to 
come to the communion-table till we had tried in 
some way to examine ourselves, and he quoted 
that verse in First Corinthians : “ Let a man ex- 
amine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, 
and drink of that cup.” 

I don’t think it is a very pleasant thing to ex- 
amine one’s self. It hurts sometimes. You 
keep remembering so many things that say, 
“ Why did you do us ? We were not the right 
things to do.” 


HA BASS A II AND I. 


23 


But I do think that the very hardest verse in 
that twelfth chapter is that about “ in honor 
preferring one another.” 

Every time I read that verse I think of one 
person. It is Hadassah ! 

And every time I have to acknowledge to 
myself that I do not prefer her in honor at all. 
I know I don’t. 

And the more I try to, the more I don’t want 
to. And I don’t like to pray much about it, be- 
cause — well, I don’t know why. Mr. Gardner 
said the other day that, no matter what our lips 
said when we prayed, if God looked into our 
hearts and saw desires there directly opposite to 
our prayers, those desires were our prayers. 
“ The desire of your heart is your prayer,” he 
said. Well, now, if I were to pray that Ha- 
dassah might be Number One, and all the time 
in my heart I hoped she would be Number Two 
and I Number One, wouldn’t God see that wish 
and wouldn’t that be a prayer that I might be 
“ preferred in honor ” before Hadassah ? 

I don’t understand it at all. I’m all mixed up 
about it. But I do know that I don’t fulfill that 
verse. I don’t love my neighbor quite as myself. 
I’m perfectly willing that Hadassah should stand 
just as high as she can, provided I get one per 


24 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

cent, or half a per cent, higher than she does 
every month. 

Why haven’t I a right to be Number One if I 
can be? What was Paul made of if he could 
like to have other folks smarter than himself? I 
suppose he must have done it, or he wouldn’t 
have written that chapter. 

Yesterday was Sunday, and I told Mr. Gardner 
that I was going to give up my Sabbath-school 
class. 

“ Why? ” asked he. 

“ Because I don’t feel strong enough to teach 
Sunday after going to school all the week,” I 
answered. 

“You don’t illustrate the perseverance of the 
saints at all,” said he, smiling. 

“ I can’t help it if I don’t,” I said ; “ I’m not a 
saint.” 

“ I think, though, that your class has been a 
means of grace to you,” he went on. 

Well, I suppose it has. When I first took 
that half of the infant-class, more than a year 
ago, I was not a Christian. I do not know what 
made the superintendent let me takq it, because 
people who are not church members very seldom 
are allowed to teach in our Sunday-school. Per- 
haps he thought I had enough head-knowledge 


HADASSAH AND /. 


25 


of the Bible to teach, though, and I suppose I 
had, for if ever children were drilled in the cate- 
chism and in all the Bible questions, from “ Who 
was the first man?” down to “What island was 
John a prisoner on?” they are the children of 
this Merritt family. My mother is responsible 
for that. What hours that woman has spent 
teaching us Bible stories ! 

So, when I began to think that there was no 
class in the Sunday-school that I exactly liked 
being a member of, and when I took a notion 
that I would like to try teaching myself, that 
half of the infant-class was given me. I don’t 
think that I was a very good teacher. Perhaps 
a girl of fourteen would not be very likely to be. 
But that class was a “means of grace” to me, as 
Mr. Gardner said. 

For how could I talk to those little folks and 
not feel condemned ? I remember talking a long 
time to them one Sunday about heaven, when 
all the time I was thinking to myself, “ Shall I 
ever go there ? ” I suppose I had somewhat the 
kind of feeling that Paul speaks of, “ Lest that 
by any means when I have preached to others, I 
myself should be a castaway.” 

But after I became a Christian I really enjoyed 
teaching those little folks. Only now I am not 


26 


NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 


going to spend the time. Hadassah studies 
Sundays. I would not do that for any thing, 
but I am not going to tire myself out teaching 
any infant-class Sundays. 

Besides, I ought to get an education. Father 
expects me to, and one cannot do more than one 
thing at a time well. 

So I ran away yesterday and did not give the 
little folks any chance to say good-bye to their 
teacher, or ask me why I am not coming any 
more. I did not want to see them. 

I did meet one of them, though, little Joey 
Brown. He met me on the corner as I fled from 
the church. 

“ Why, teacher ! ’’ he said, his eyes wide open 
with astonishment. “ You’re going the wrong 
way! I brought you some bu’ful flowers. See!” 
and he held me up a sticky, dreadful-smelling 
bunch of yellow marigolds. 

And I hardly stopped to thank him, poor lit- 
tle red-headed chap, but I hurried on, going 
the wrong way,” as he said. 

October 12. — “ Did you observe that paragraph 
in to-day’s history lesson ? ” 

That was what Julia Leslie said this noon as we 
were sitting in the school-room, eating our lunch. 


I/ADA SSAff AND /. 


27 


“ Haven’t looked at it,” languidly answered 
Fannie Swain, the light-haired girl who goes to 
more parties than any one of the rest of us. 

“ What paragraph ? ” I asked. 

“ That one on the Jews,” answered Julia. 

Her voice was pitched rather unnecessarily 
high. Hadassah was sitting over by the window, 
and I think that Julia wanted her to hear. 

“I’ll read it to you,” said Julia, obligingly; 
and she took her history out of her desk and 
opened the book before I could stop her. In 
fact, I hardly realized yet what she meant, but 
I did as soon as she began to read. 

“ This is it,” she went on ; and in her clear, 
high-pitched voice, she read the paragraph about 
the Jews that was in our lesson for the day. I 
had studied it, of course, and knew just what 
was coming ; but I had never thought of its 
hurting Hadassah’s feelings until that minute. 
The paragraph was about Leonor of Aragon. 
This is it. I know it by heart : 

“ Her religious scruples were carried to such 
an extreme that at one time, though greatly in 
want of money, she positively refused to accept 
the voluntary offer of a large donation from the 
Jews who inhabited the towns that formed part 
of her jointure, lest the money might prove 


28 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

cursed, and the donors in their hearts curse the 
king and her children.” 

“She was foolish,” said Fannie, indifferently. 
“ Now if I were a queen, I am sure that I should 
take all the money my subjects would offer me.” 

She laughed lightly, but Julia was not going 
to let the subject drop so. 

“ I think she was right myself,” she said, clear- 
ly ; “I would not trust any Jew.” 

“ Do keep still, Julia,” I said, softly. 

I had been watching Hadassah. She had not 
pretended to hear any thing, but as the talk had 
gone on she had colored and put up her hand so 
as to screen her face from observation. She was 
studying her algebra lesson. 

But some one else had heard the talk if Ha- 
dassah had not. Miss Towne was nearer than 
we thought. 

“ What was that you said, Julia? ” she asked. 

Julia jumped and colored. 

“ I did not quite understand your remark,” 
said Miss Towne. “ It was evidently no secret. 
Will you please repeat it ? ” 

“ I said I would not trust any Jew,” muttered 
Julia. 

“ What do you owe to the Jews? ” asked Miss 
Towne, rather severely. 


HADASSAH AND I. 


29 


“ I ? Nothing, of course,” said Julia, proudly. 

“ Do not we all owe something? ” asked Miss 
Towne, in a more gentle way. “ Which nation 
was it that gave us our Bible? How should you 
and I have ever known of the way of salvation, 
Julia, if it had not been for that nation? Was 
it not written of our Lord himself that he should 
be of the tribe of Judah ? ” 

Julia did not answer, and Miss Towne went on 
to her desk. 

I looked toward Hadassah’s desk, but she was 
gone. She had slipped out when I had not seen 
her. 

Miss Towne came back after awhile, laid a bit 
of paper on Julia’s desk, and passed on. 

Julia showed me the paper. There were a 
few lines of writing on it, and what it said was : 
“ Be kindly affectioned one to another with 
brotherly love.” 

It was a piece of my twelfth chapter of Ro- 
mans. I wonder if it is a common practice for 
Christian people to measure themselves by that 
chapter ? I wonder if that is what Paul wrote it 
for ? Anyway, it seems to fit almost every thing. 

I was Number One again last month. But 
Hadassah is very near me. She lacked only a 
fraction of one per cent, of being equal with me. 


30 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

And I cannot say at all that I like it. To be 
sure, when I read the twelfth chapter of Romans 
about “ preferring one another,” and think that 
Hadassah hasn’t been Number One once, and 
I’ve been all this term, it does look somewhat 
selfish. But how could I bear it any other way ? 

November 15. — “We have a model Christian 
at our house.” 

That is what Nina le Page said yesterday 
noon. 

“ Who is it ? ” I asked. 

I could not make out whether Nina was in 
earnest or not. Sometimes it is not easy to 
tell. 

“ I didn’t refer to myself,” said Nina, shrug- 
ging her shoulders over the process of peeling 
her hard-boiled egg. “ The extraordinary per- 
son is my grandfather. My little sister Sadie, 
the one you saw last week, was lying on my bed 
crying when I went home after school yesterday 
afternoon. 

“ ‘ What is the matter? ’ I said, as I shut the 
door of my room. I was so tired that I didn’t 
want to be bothered, but Said cries so seldom 
that I thought it must be something dreadful 
that had happened. 


HAD ASSAM AND /. 


31 


“ ‘ I’ve got a trouble, a big, grown-up trouble,’ 
sobbed Sadie. 

“ ‘ What is it?’ I said again, and I laughed a 
little, for the idea of a child like Sadie having 
a ‘ big, grown-up trouble ’ seemed ridiculous. 

“ Sha’n’t we ever have any Christmas any 
more?^ she asked, sitting up with two big tears 
rolling out of her eyes. ‘ I think it’s too bad, 
and I just wish grandpa would go away, I do,’ 
and poor Said lay down again and wailed aloud 
over her misfortunes. 

“ Well, of course, I had to play the dutiful 
granddaughter. It wouldn’t have done for me 
to have told Said that I felt just as she did, so 
I asked : 

“ ‘ Did grandpa say any thing about Christ- 
mas ? ’ 

“‘Yes, he did,’ sobbed Sadie. ‘ He just said 
he thought it was nonsense, and he didn’t think 
folks ought to keep it. And it would be just 
dreadful not to have any.’ 

“ ‘ O, well,’ I said, consolingly, ‘ don’t worry. 
We shall have some sort of a Christmas, I guess. 
I don’t suppose that grandfather’s father and 
mother ever used to keep Christmas when he 
was a boy, and so grandpa never found his stock- 
ing full of balls and tops and candy and nuts. 


32 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

And I suppose that is the reason why he thinks 
Christmas is all nonsense.’ ” 

“ Seems to me you were pretty charitable for 
you, Nina,” interposed Della Wolfe. 

Why, of course I was,” calmly replied Nina, 
breaking a cooky in two. “ You girls never give 
me credit for half my goodness. Where was I? O, 
yes! Well, Said’s sorrow changed to wrath at my 
defense of her grandparent, and she sat up again. 

‘ I think he’s real mean,’ she said. ‘ Why, 
I’ve been so good to him, too ! Why, that Sun- 
day when he had forgotten the days of the week 
and he thought it was Saturday and went into 
the back yard after, breakfast and began sawing 
wood, and papa had to go and call him in, I 
never even laughed at him, ’cause I was so sorry 
to see how ashamed he was ’cause he couldn’t 
remember when Sunday came. 

“‘And ever so many times after grandpa ’d 
been out-doors' sawing and chopping, and got 
slivers in his hands, I took a needle and got out 
every single sliver just as easy so ’s not to hurt 
him. 

“ ‘And I fixed him that queer vinegar and water 
and sugar that he likes to drink hot days after 
he works in the garden in the sun. Now, haven’t 
I been good, Nina? ’ 


HADASSAH AND /. 


33 


“ ‘ Very good,’ I said ; ‘ and you will be better 
still if you will climb down off that bed and let 
me make it.’ 

“ It was doleful for Sadie. She went off 
grumbling out : ‘ I just wish he was a comfable 
sort of grandpa and didn’t make me ’fraid of him 
all the time.’ Honestly, I don’t believe Said 
feels acquainted with grandfather yet ; he is 
so dignified an old man and looks so stern and 
talks such big words that the child can hardly 
tell what he means. You see, the fact is that 
grandpa is new in our family, you know, and we 
haven’t got used to him.” 

“ Why, he’s been there four or five months, 
hasn’t he ?” asked Della. Most grandparents 
would get acquainted with their grandchildren 
in that time, I think.” 

“Alas! my dear child,” went on Nina, as 
she pulled another sandwich out of her basket, 
“ my grandfather isn’t like ‘ most.’ Grandma is 
nice, but between them they take possession of 
the sitting-room, for they keep the fire going in 
there till it’s so hot that none of us can stay in 
the room any length of time. I study up in my 
own room. 

“ Now, Nellie,” said Nina, in that sudden, 

peculiar tone of voice that always with her 
3 


34 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

preludes some slur on religion, “ don’t you think 
I have a beautiful Christian example set me by 
my grandfather? He has belonged to the church 
all his life, I guess, and he is so amiable ! Why, 
will you believe it, he actually forbade mother’s 
using the carpet-sweeper because he said it wears 
out the carpets ! And how is poor ma ever go- 
ing to suit him and get the sweeping done ? 
But she’s so patient that she will stand any thing 
from grandfather. Another of his peculiarities 
is he don’t believe in pictures. Why, he looked 
in horror at the walls of our rooms ; said some- 
thing about ‘ thou shalt not make any likeness 
of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in 
the earth beneath,’ and so on. I expected that 
he’d climb up and knock all the pictures down, 
but he didn’t. Probably he will order mother 
to do that next cleaning-day. 

“ But the oddest thing of all was yesterday. 
He found me with a volume of comic poetry that 
I’d been reading. I just laid it down for a min- 
ute, when grandpa reached over and picked that 
book up. He took it off to his room and stayed 
awhile, and I was beginning to wonder if he 
really would laugh over that stuff when the door 
opened. He came out and threw the book 
down in disgust. 


HADASSAH AND /. 35 

“ ‘ Trumpery ! Silly stuff! ’ he cried, and his 
eyes snapped. 

“ Then he sat down and delivered me a lecture 
on wasting my time reading nonsense. And he 
told me the queerest thing. He said that when 
he was converted he had a copy of Robinson 
Crusoe^ and he became convinced that it was no 
book for a Christian to waste time on, so one 
night he took that book out into his father’s 
orchard and dug a hole and buried it. Imagine, 
girls, Robinson Crusoe / Why, you would have 
thought it was a horribly wicked book to have 
heard grandfather talk. Wasn't it funny ? ” 

The girls laughed, all but Hadassah. 

“What are you solemn over?” Nina asked, 
gayly, as she threw a cooky over into Hadassah ’s 
lap. 

“ I was thinking,” said Hadassah, slowly, “ that 
you and I are a good deal alike.” 

“ My patience ! I should hope not,” cried 
Nina, tragically. “ Don’t insinuate such a shock- 
ing thing as that. Had. How in the world do 
you mean ? ” 

“We are alike in this,” Hadassah said, gravely, 
not even noticing the unaccustomed abbreviation 
of her name, “ that whenever we see a Christian 
we always go to work to find all the faults we 


36 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

can in him, and we never look for good things at 
all. Now, that would be just what would 
naturally be expected of mCy being one of a 
nation opposed to Christianity, but you have no 
such excuse.” 

And Hadassah walked off. 

“ Mean thing ! ” cried Nina, looking after her, 
“ to say such a thing as that to me, when she’s 
just pocketed my cooky and is going off to masti- 
cate it ! ‘ Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, 
more hideous — ’ 

“ Don’t inflict Shakespeare on us, whatever 
else you do, Nina,” said Della, as she gave Nina 
a poke that utterly spoiled her dramatic attitude. 
“ Besides, it isn’t the ‘ ingratitude ’ that touches 
you ; you know it isn’t. It’s what she said about 
your finding fault with church-folks. I have no 
doubt that your grandpa is one of the salt of the 
earth. People who have so dreadful grand- 
children usually are.” 

“Thank you, thank you kindly, miss,” re- 
sponded Nina with a bow. 

“ And as for his peculiarities about books and 
pictures and carpet-sweepers and hot fires and 
vinegar and all the rest,” went on Della, picking 
up her algebra, “ old people have their peculiari- 
ties, and you should not lay them to religion.” 


HADASSAH AA'D I. 


37 


“ Can I ever express to you how thankful I 
am for your good advice? ” asked Nina, with an 
air of deepest gratitude. 

Then the school-bell rang, and talk was sup- 
posed to stop. 

After I came home I told the folks about the 
burial of Robinson Crusoe^ and mother did not 
seem to think it was so very funny. She smiled 
a little, and grandma said : “ I think it showed 
that the boy was in earnest. Of course, there is 
nothing wicked in Robinson Crusoe^ but if Nina’s 
grandfather thought that that book stood be- 
tween him and consecration to God I think he 
was right to dispose of it. It may have been a 
real sacrifice in God’s sight, although it looks 
like a needless one to us. I hope you said some- 
thing of the kind to the girls, Nellie,” and grand- 
ma looked at me over the top of her spectacles. 

No ; it was not Nellie Merritt, that girl who 
has been instructed in religion all her life, who 
stood up for the old grandfather, but it was 
Della Wolfe, who comes from a worldly family 
and is not, so far as I know, interested in 
Christianity at all. 

November 17. — It is funny how some girls 
always pretend to know everything. Julia said 


38 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

to-day that the reason why Miss Towne never 
has married is that once she was going to marry 
a man and he died away off somewhere. I 
don’t know where Jule gets all her news. She 
always has a great deal to tell, but I hardly be- 
lieve a good deal of it. 

Jule says that, after all, though Miss Towne is 
very benevolent, and appears well, and always 
does a great deal of church work, yet she thinks 
that Miss Towne is self-righteous. Well, I 
know she is not. 

And Jule says that Professor Hazelton dyes 
his hair. 

Ma does not like to have me associate much 
with Jule, especially since I told her about the 
novels that Jule keeps in her desk and reads 
times when she is supposed by her teachers to 
be studying. 

November 20. — I suppose that I acted a sort of 
lie yesterday. At least I do not feel exactly 
comfortable over it, and yet I hardly wanted to 
explain to Miss Towne. 

Her brother is dead. He was away in Florida 
somewhere, and took a fever and died. Miss 
Towne feels dreadfully about it. 

She came into that dark little closet in the hall 


HADASSAH AND I. 


39 


when I was getting a drink there, and she put 
her arms around me and cried. And she said : 

“ O, Nellie, I know you know how I feel. 
None of the other scholars do. But your 
brother is dead, too. But, Nellie, you could be 
with him all the time and do things for him, but 
I was so far away from my brother when he 
died.” 

And she cried again, and I wiped my eyes. 
But I couldn’t cry, too, very hard, because I have 
not had any very deep trouble such as she thinks 
that I have had. 

My brother w'as not a real one. He was a 
boy that papa adopted, and w'as years and years 
older than I when I first saw him. He lived 
away from home and I seldom met him, for he 
was in the northern part of this State. But just 
about a year ago he came home to die of con- 
sumption. 

I was not a Christian then, and poor Will was 
not, either. He used to lie on his bed, and 
cough, and cry, and say : “ O, I’m going to die ! 
I’m going to die!” And once he said tome: 
“ O, Nellie, do pray for me!” 

And I promised him I would, although I 
didn’t feel fit to pray even for myself. 

And grandma talked with him, and the 


40 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

minister, and every day Will looked worse and 
worse, till one day he went to ride to the/ 
barber’s, and when he came back I didn’t know 
him at all, but thought he was some stranger till 
I saw the slippers that he wore. And at last 
he died, and I do hope he became a Christian 
before he died, but we could not be sure of that. 

Of course, a death like that could not occur 
without being a great shock to our family, but 
still I am sure that I had not any such feeling as 
Miss Towne has about her brother, because 
I hardly knew Will at all, and I did not miss him 
around the house as I should have done if he had 
lived with us. I remember I even laughed at 
something the day after he was buried, and then 
I was shocked at myself. But I couldn’t feel so 
dreadfully when I never had cared much for him. 
It would have been very different if Bessie had 
died. I think that would have almost broken 
my heart. I can’t bear to think of it. And I 
suppose that is the way Miss Towne feels about 
her brother. 

But I could hardly explain the difference to 
her when she spoke to me, and I am sure she 
thinks I understand her feelings a great deal 
better than I do. Of course, I am sorry for her. 
Isn’t it queer how folks never can explain their 


IIADASSAH AND /. 


41 


feelings exactly to one another? I think it 
would save ever so much trouble if we could just 
look into each other’s minds and see the feelings, 
and not have to explain. 

“Do you suppose Miss Towne will feel re- 
signed?” said Nina to me, gravely, as I pulled 
on my sack after school. 

“ I suppose she will feel just the way a Christian 
ought to,” I answered. “ I am sure she will.*’ 
“Are you?” asked Nina, mockingly, and I 
went down stairs, saying indignantly to myself, 
“ I don’t believe that Nina le Page has any 
sympathy at all. She is dreadfully hard-hearted.’ ’ 
But as I wrote before, it would be a very con- 
venient thing if we could know each other’s real 
feelings. It would save a good many notions 
that we have. My own remark about Nina 
proved to be false. This morning when I went 
into the school-room Miss Towne was sitting at 
her desk in black, and before her was the love- 
liest bouquet of white flowers and forget-me- 
nots and pansies. When I stopped to speak to 
her she showed me the bouquet, and said : 
“ Sometimes flowers tell us things that the 
senders do not, Nellie.” 

“ Who gave them to you ?” I asked. 

And she answered : “ Nina le Page. Did you 


42 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

ever read that passage in Jeremy Taylor’s writ- 
ings, Nellie: ‘That which thou dost not under- 
stand when thou readest, thou shalt understand 
in the day of thy visitation. For many secrets 
of religion are not perceived till they are felt, and 
are not felt but in the day of great calamity? ’ I 
think perhaps it is that way with our friends, 
Nellie. We do not really know some of them 
till we are in trouble.” 

January 8. — How did you manage about 
Christmas?” Della asked Nina, the other day. 
“ Did your grandfather let you keep it, after 
all?” 

“ Sadie bought him over,” laughed Nina. 
“ Actually, my incorruptible grandfather took a 
bribe. Ma and Sadie were determined that he 
should taste of the joys of Christmas. Those 
two people secretly abstracted an old boot from 
grandfather’s closet, and went off down town 
one day. They came back with a beautiful pair 
of slippers, Sadie’s own present for grandfather. 

“ And Christmas morning, after Sadie had 
looked in her stocking, she ran down stairs and 
tied the slippers on grandfather’s door-knob. 
She pinned a piece of paper on the slippers, 
and the paper said ‘ Merry Christmas ’ in big, 


HADASSAH AND /. 


43 

awkward letters. Then Said went into a corner 
of the hall and hid to hear him open his door. 

“ The breakfast-bell rang, and all of a sudden 
that waited-for door flew open. 

“ Sadie says that grandfather broke forth into 
these eloquent words, ‘ Hum ! Why — why — 
why ! ’ 

“ Worth waiting for, wasn’t it? 

“ And then he went back into his room. He 
was late to breakfast that morning for the first 
time since he came to our house. 

“ I didn’t hear any thanks from him, but I 
heard what Sadie said to her biggest doll. Said 
tells that doll every thing. I heard her . say, 
* My grandpa was awful surprised. He ’most 
cried, I know, ’cause I peeped and saw him. I 
was ’fraid he didn’t like the slippers at first. I 
never cry when I like things. But I guess he 
did like them, for he wore them all day, and 
mamma told him I gave them to him, and he 
said, ‘ Bless the child,’ just the way Kitty Blake’s 
grandpa does, and mamma says she guesses he 
does begin to think Christmas is nice, after 
all.’” 

Nina laughed as she ended. 

Then she caught sight of Hadassah, and a 
thought seemed to strike her. 


44 


NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 


'‘Had,” she said, bending across the aisle; 
“Had, O Had!” 

Nina never will call Hadassah by her full 
name. “Had” or “The Auxiliary Verb” are 
the most frequent forms of address that Hadas- 
sah endures from Nina. 

“What is it?” asked Hadassah, lifting her 
head from her examples. 

“Did you keep Christmas?” asked Nina, 
mischievously. 

Hadassah colored. 

“ I received some presents from my father,” 
she said. 

“ O,” said Nina, “ I only asked the question 
because I did not really know whether the Jews 
keep Christmas or not.” 

“ The rabbis generally dislike it,” said Hadas- 
sah, “ but many Jews give presents then. They 
do not regard it as any acknowledgment of 
Christ, but they say that there is no harm in 
conforming to the customs of the American peo- 
ple in such a thing. I know that many of the 
Israelites have Christmas-trees and stockings 
and make Christmas the gift-day of the year, 
instead of the feast of Purim.” 

“That’s the feast of Esther, isn’t it?” I 
asked. 


HADASSAH AND /. 


45 


I had just been reading the Book of Esther, or 
I should not have remembered. I was glad I 
had, for I should have felt very much mortified 
to have had a Jewess know more about the 
Bible than I. 

“Yes,” said Hadassah ; “you know the story, 
don’t you, about Esther and Mordecai and 
Haman, and the saving of the Jews from being 
killed?” 

“ And do they keep up that feast yet ? ” asked 
Nina. 

“ Why, of course,” said Hadassah. 

“But it’s hundreds of years ago,” said Nina; 
“ I shouldn’t think your gratitude would last so 
long.” 

“What do the Jews do on Purim? ” I asked. 

“ Read the Megillah in the synagogue,” re- 
sponded Hadassah. 

“The what?” cried Nina. “ Say that thing 
over again.” 

“The Megillah,” patiently repeated Hadas- 
.sah. “ The ‘ roll ’ of Esther, you know. They 
read the story all through in Hebrew. It would 
sound to you like a monotonous kind of chant. 
And then families visit one another on Purim, 
at their houses, and balls are held. Purim is a 
national festival.” 


46 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“Something like our Fourth of July,” said 
Nina, meditatively. 

“ Only there is nothing in the Bible about the 
Fourth of July,” said Hadassah, smiling. 

“How you know?” asked Nina. “You 
never read but half or two thirds of the Bible. 
I don’t believe that you ever read the New Tes- 
tament. Now, did you, except what you read 
the other day?” 

But Hadassah said nothing. 

What Nina referred to was this. It was only 
the other day that in our English composition 
lesson there was something about the “ good 
Samaritan.” One of the scholars blundered 
over it, and some way Mr. Hazelton asked us 
if we knew about the story of that person re- 
ferred to in the lesson. 

Some of us did. I did, of course. A good 
many did not, and at last Mr. Hazelton sent 
into the next room for a New Testament, found 
the place of the parable, and called on Hadassah 
to read it. 

I do not really suppose that Professor Hazel- 
ton ever thought any thing about Hadassah 
being a Jewess. I don’t think that he had the 
slightest idea about it, only he thought that he 
would have the parable read, and Hadassah was 


NADASSAH AND I. 


47 


one of those who had not known about it, and 
she is a fine reader, and so he would have her 
read it. I don’t believe that the man really 
knows that Hadassah is a Jewess. 

Well, I expected, of course, to see Hadassah 
refuse, or ask to be excused, or something. But 
she did not. She rose up, took the New Tes- 
tament politely, faced us, and read the story 
through beautifully. 

But I thought it was too bad in Nina to twit 
her with it. 

Nina watched her as she bent once more over 
her examples. 

I wish I had known that Had would take 
Christmas presents,” she said to me, in a whis- 
per; “ I would have sent her one.” 

It seems to me that Nina le Page is the queer- 
est girl that I ever saw. She’s kind-hearted, and 
yet she isn’t. She’s generous, and yet she’s so 
critical that one would think she hated Christian 
people. I don’t understand her at all, but I 
like her ever so much. Most all the scholars 
do, and that’s the reason why I think that if she 
really were a Christian she would do more good 
than I do, just because she has so much per- 
sonal attraction or magnetism, or whatever it is. 
But I’m afraid she leads the other way now. 


48 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

March 25. — Miss Towne called me to her 
desk to-night as I was going out. 

“ Wait a minute,” said she. 

When she came back after watching the 
scholars down the stairs she showed me some- 
thing wrapped up in brown paper. 

“ What is it ? ” I asked, as she opened the 
package. 

“ Something Hadassah brought me,’* said 
Miss Towne. 

“ They look like big crackers,” I said, leaning 
over to get a nearer view of the things in the 
package. 

“ They ” did look like crackers, thin and crisp. 

“ They are some of the * unleavened bread ’ 
of the passover,” explained Miss Towne ; “ I 
told Hadassah awhile ago that I had never seen 
any, and would like to do so. She remembered 
what I said, and now that it is almost passover, 
or ‘ Pesach,’ as she calls it, she surprised me by 
bringing me these matzos.” 

“ What do you call them ?” I asked. 

“ Matzzoth, or matzos,” said Miss Towne ; “ I 
believe the latter is the common term used 
around here. You remember, don’t you, that 
the children of Israel were commanded to eat 
unleavened bread during the passover.^ ” 


HADASSAH AND /. 


49 


I did have a somewhat dim recollection of 
the fact. 

“ I believe so/’ I said. 

Miss Towne opened a drawer and drew out a 
Bible. She turned over to Deuteronomy and 
read these words : “ ‘ Seven days shalt thou eat 
unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of 
affliction : for thou earnest forth out of the land 
of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember 
the day when thou earnest forth out of the land 
of Egypt all the days of thy life. And there 
shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in 
all thy coast seven days.’ 

“ I was looking over some Hebrew papers the 
other day,” went on Miss Towne, “and I saw 
quite a number of advertisements of matzos, and 
one man advertised that all the provisions sold 
by him for the festival were ‘kosher.’ I didn’t 
quite know what that meant, though I thought 
I could guess, for immediately he spoke of 
smoked beef and corned beef. I asked Hadas- 
sah about the word, and she says it comes from 
a Hebrew word, ‘ cash^r,’ lawful, and it is used 
in reference to those meats that may be eaten 
by ceremonious Jews. You know in old times 
there was a prohibition against eating meat with 

the blood, and the Jews have special butchers 
4 


50 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

still whose duty it is to prepare cattle according 
to the traditional method. So you see, Nellie, 
how many people are bound yet by the old cer- 
emonial law, and have no knowledge of the free- 
dom of Christ’s followers from such burdens. 
Surely the law of Moses must seem burdensome 
to those who try to work out their own salva- 
tion.” 

I stood still a minute, looking at the matzos, 
and Miss Towne broke off a piece of one and 
wrapped it in a paper for me to take home. 

“What are you doing for Hadassah, Nellie?” 
she asked. 

“ Doing for her ? ” I repeated. 

I did not understand what Miss Towne meant. 

“Yes,” she said; “are you trying to show 
her the happiness of a Christian life ? ” 

Miss Towne was looking at me earnestly, and 
I could not evade her question. 

“ No,” I said, at last. “ I don’t believe I ever 
even thought of such a thing. Miss Towne. 
Hadassah would not care if I did. I don’t be- 
lieve — and then I stopped. I had been 
going to say that I did not believe it is an easy 
thing for a Jew to become converted. 

“ How do you know that she would not care ? ” 
asked Miss Towne. “ I think it is an oppor- 


J/ADASSAH AND /. 


51 


tunity, Nellie. At least I regard it as an oppor- 
tunity of mine, and I think it might be one of 
yours, also. I would not talk to the other girls 
this way, because most of them are not Chris- 
tians, and I am afraid that they might do some- 
thing to offend Hadassah so that she would hate 
Christianity. But I think you would have dis- 
cretion about it, if you would only try. I have not 
seen you trying, Nellie. Don’t let the studies take 
up^// the time. They are only part of your work. 
Don’t forget that you are meeting souls every 
day, Nellie. I made that mistake when I first 
began to teach. I thought all I had to do was to 
tell my scholars how to learn their lessons, and 
to explain difficult problems to them ; but I 
found out that I had more to do than that. I 
have always been glad that I found it out so 
soon, but I am sorry I did not find it out sooner. 
One of my scholars died, Nellie, and every time 
I saw her vacant desk at school I felt self-con- 
demned. So many, many times I had talked 
with her of her studies, and encouraged her to 
persevere, but I had never said one word to her 
about her soul.” 

Miss Towne stopped. She bent over her desk 
and slipped the Bible back into its drawer, but I 
saw the sudden tears in her eyes. 


52 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TIVO? 

Well, I am sure I couldn’t have a bit of influ- 
ence over Hadassah. In , fact, I think she is not 
a girl who would be influenced by any one. And 
then I shouldn’t know what to say to her, any- 
way. Why, I never in my life asked a person to 
become a Christian, excepting, of course, those 
little tots in my Sabbath-school class. Ha- 
dassah is altogether different. 

Besides, Principal Thorn put every such idea 
out of my head after I left Miss Towne. I met 
him on the stairs, and he said: “ Ah, Nellie! I 
heard a very nice thing about you. That was a 
very high per cent, you received in the last Latin 
examination.” 

And I came home with my head so turned by 
that bit of praise from the principal that I 
actually forgot all about the dishes after supper, 
and let ma wash and wipe them while I sat 
cramming in more Latin words and rules. Ma 
set the table, too, to-night, and I found she had 
swept my room and mended my blue dress. I 
promised to do both those last things, but I de- 
clare I forgot them. It’s too bad, for ma looks 
dreadfully worn out. I told her she ought to 
have waited and left such things for me, but she 
only sighed a little, and said : “ I have waited.” 

Shall I ever remember any thing? 


I7ADASSAH AND /. 


53 


April 13. — I resolved last Sunday that I would 
reform. I have not been going to meeting as 
much as I ought to. So I went to church as 
usual in the morning, and when Sabbath-school 
time came I told Mr. Gardner that I would begin 
to teach again if he would give me a class. 

Clara Wilson has the half of the infant-class 
that I used to have. I think the little folks like 
her. I have not said much about Clara in this 
journal of mine, but she is the girl who joined 
the church at the same time I did. 

I heard Mr. Gardner talking to some one 
about Clara the other day, and he said : “ Hasn’t 
that girl grown in grace wonderfully since she 
became one of us ? Some Christians might learn 
a good deal from Clara.” 

I never heard Mr. Gardner praise me that way. 
He never does praise people much to their faces, 
though ; but I have a sort of feeling that he does 
not believe that I have grown as much as Clara 
has. 

I am afraid I never did like Clara Wilson very 
well. Folks always seemed to think that I did, 
because they supposed we would, naturally, on 
account of being converted at the same time. 
Even mother used to ask me why I did not go 
to see Clara. But Clara always grated on me. 


54 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

She dresses in such dreadful mixtures of colors ! 
She would be pretty if it were not for that, but 
a blue dress and a white shawl and pink rib- 
bons, topped with a hat with a green and yellow 
feather, are enough to scare all the prettiness 
out of her looks. 

Clara is a good girl, though. Seems to me she 
talks about her feelings more easily than I do. 
She confesses her faults more easily, too. For 
instance, I never should have told her what she 
told me once. It was about a lie of hers when 
she was a little girl. She said that there were 
protracted meetings going on in our church, and 
she went to them, and there had been a good 
old minister there who had talked to the chil- 
dren about loving Jesus and having him take 
away their sins ; and Clara had held up her hand 
with the others when the minister asked them 
how many would like to become Christians. 

Well, the next day, Clara was up stairs in her 
own little room, with her box of water-colors 
and a bpok of pictures that she was painting, and 
she had been at work for quite awhile and felt 
very happy. She had almost forgotten about 
the meeting of the night before. 

But suddenly she stopped singing, and paint- 
ing too. She grew very sober. 


HADASSAH AND L 


55 


“ I know it was my conscience,” said Clara, 
when she told this story to me. “ It was saying 
over and over to me: ‘You can't be a Chris- 
tian till you tell mamma about Mr. Rosenberg 
and the lie you told.’ 

“And I kept answering my conscience and 
saying : ‘ I don’t see why I can’t. I can ask God 
to forgive me, and that will do. I needn’t tell 
mamma. I’d hate to do that.’ ” 

This was the thing that Clara and her con- 
science were talking about : The Monday be- 
fore this her mother had said to her : “ Clara, I 
want you to run down to Mr. Rosenberg’s store 
and get me a spool of black silk thread. Here is 
a quarter of a dollar. I think the spool will cost 
fifteen cents or so.” 

And Clara had said: “Yes, ma’am,” and 
had put on her hat and run happily off to do the 
errand, for this happened when Clara’s folks lived 
a little way out of town, and Clara was always 
glad of an excuse to make an errand into town 
and see what was going on. 

Mr. Rosenberg gave her the spool of thread 
and ten cents in exchange for her quarter, and 
Clara went running back up the long road that 
led homeward. It was a bright day, and the 
warm sunshine and the singing of birds made 


56 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Clara feel so happy that she danced along think- 
ing nothing about her Qrrand until she suddenly 
looked down at her spool, and then she stopped, 
saying to herself: “ Where is that ten cent 
piece? ” 

She felt in her pocket, but that was empty ; 
she opened the paper around the spool of thread, 
thinking that perhaps the money might have 
slipped inside of that, but it was not so. 

“ O, O ! Now, have I gone and lost that 
money ? ” said she to herself. “ How could 
I have forgotten it ? I’m sure I had it just a 
minute ago ; ” and Clara looked carefully along 
by the fence, among the bushes, in the cracks of 
the sidewalk, every-where where she thought she 
might have dropped it, but no shining bit of 
money was to be seen, and Clara, after a long 
hunt, went sorrowfully on toward home. 

“ O, I am so sorry ! ” sobbed she to herself. 
“ Whatever will mamma think of me? ” 

And then she cried harder than ever. There 
was no one living on the road, so she could cry 
all she wanted to and no one would see her. 
But home was coming nearer and nearer every 
step of the way. 

Then there came into Clara’s mind the idea 
that perhaps she need not tell her mother every 


HADASSAH AND I. 


57 


thing just as it really occurred. If Clara had 
been the kind of girl then that she is now I 
don’t believe she would have told that lie. But 
she did tell one, and that was what made her 
look so very sober as she sat that day up in her 
room after so suddenly stopping painting. 

She was thinking how she had gone in and 
given the spool to her mother. 

“ That is right,” said Mrs. Wilson, looking at 
the thread. “ Where is the change, Clara ? ” 

“ Mr. Rosenberg didn’t give me any,” said 
Clara, beginning to cry. 

“Didn’t give you any?” said her mother, 
looking very much surprised. “ Why, he ought 
to have given you change. Didn’t he say any 
thing about it ? ” 

“ No, ma’am,” said Clara, between her sobs. 

“Well, don’t cry about it,” said her mother, 
soothingly. “ It was not your fault ; but if he is 
going to cheat you like that I can’t let you go 
to his store until you get to be a bigger girl.” 

So Clara had dried up her tears and gone off 
to play, and she really had not thought much 
about what a bad thing she had done until that 
morning when her conscience talked to her up in 
her room. 

Well, just then, as Clara sat there thinking 


58 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

sorrowfully, her little sister Carrie came to the 
foot of the stairs. 

•‘Clara, Clara,” she called, “come down. 
Mamma says you and I can go over to Mrs. Hil- 
ton’s and play with Benny and the baby. Come 
quick ! ” 

Clara jumped up and stood for a minute hesi- 
tating. 

“You run along and go over there, Carrie,” 
called she, at length ; “ I’ll come pretty soon.” 

“All right,” called Carrie, and the next min- 
ute Clara heard the door shut, and Carrie ran off 
toward Mrs. Hilton’s. 

Clara stopped a moment, and then she went 
slowly down the stairs. Her mother was in the 
sewing-room, and Clara just went in and sat 
down and began to cry. 

“ Why, what is the matter? ” asked her moth- 
er. “ Why didn’t you go with Carrie ? ” 

“ ’Cause,” sobbed Clara, “ ’cause Mr. Rosen- 
berg did give me ten cents after all, mamma — 
and I told a lie — and I lost it,” and Clara cried 
as if she were never going to stop. 

“ Why, Clara ! ” said her mother, very much 
astonished. 

By and by, when Clara became a little calmer, 
her mother questioned her about it, and Clara 


HADASSAJI AND /. 


59 


told her every thing — about how she dropped 
the money and could not find it, and was afraid 
to tell, and so said what was untrue ; and then 
the mother took her little girl into the next 
room and they both knelt down, and the mother 
prayed God to forgive Clara for telling that 
wicked lie. 

“ And I really believed that God did forgive 
me,’ ’ said Clara, when she told me this story ; “ and 
mother taught me that verse: ‘If we confess 
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our 
sins,’ for Jesus’s sake. I was ever so much hap- 
pier after that. My mother kissed me and 
washed away the tear-stains, and then I ran over 
to Mrs. Hilton’s and played with Bennie and 
Carrie and the baby. It seemed to me that I 
never had so good a time before, and I really 
believe that I was the happiest one of them all, 
for the great burden that I had been carrying 
around with me was gone. Mother thought that 
I became a Christian then, but I don’t think so. 
I don’t think that I was one till lately. A few 
months after that Mr. Rosenberg died, and when 
I heard of it I said to myself: ‘ Just supposing 
I had not told mamma, wouldn’t I feel badly 
now ? ’ and I was thankful that I had done as my 
conscience told me to do that day.” 


6o NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

I don’t feel like telling Clara as many things 
about myself as she tells me about herself. I 
don’t know why, only I never do like to let 
every one see every thing I think and do. Not 
because the thoughts and actions are wrong, 
either, but because I think people have no busi- 
ness to know. 

Well, it seems to me that it’s no wonder 
that Clara’s “grown in grace.” She doesn’t go 
to school ; she’s too stupid to care much about 
books, anyway, so she doesn’t have to spend 
her time on them. But I do suppose that she 
is good. I never saw her angry in my life. She 
does well enough for those infant-class scholars, 
anyway. 

I’m glad to get rid of teaching such little tots, 
and I hoped Mr. Gardner would see that I am 
fitted for something better, and would give me 
some scholars who could comprehend the fact 
that I know more than they. I might have known 
he wouldn’t, though. He never seems to appre- 
ciate me very well. I believe he thought more 
of me before I became a Christian than he does 
now, for once then he said to me: “ I want you 
to be a Christian, Nellie, because I think you will 
be a good one.” 

Well, he hasn’t seen his prophecy fulfilled. I’m 


HADASSAH AND I. 


6i 

afraid. Anyhow, he seems disappointed with me 
some way, and pleased with Clara. 

Mrs. Lacy likes Clara, too. Mrs. Lacy has 
the other half of the infant-class, and she says 
she thinks “Clara is an exceptionally fine teacher. 
She wins the hearts of the little ones.” 

Stuff ! Mrs. Lacy likes Clara because she will 
do whatever Mrs. Lacy says. I would not be 
ordered around so. 

And now they are going to have a separate 
room for the infant-class, and Clara is going to 
be “ assistant.” And by and by they hope to 
have a little organ in the infant-class room, and 
Clara told me she is going to try to learn to 
play. I don’t believe she can. She hasn’t brains 
enough, but I suppose she wants to show off, 
leading the infant-class singing. 

She draws pictures on a blackboard now for 
that class, and Mr. Gardner let her take a dollar 
out of the Sabbath-school treasury and send to 
the city for colored chalk, so that her pictures 
will look prettier. I don’t see why he couldn’t 
have done some such thing when I was teaching. 
I am sure I could draw as well as Clara, and I 
do not believe I should have drawn a man with 
a face that looked so much like a monkey as that 
one which she made on the board last Sunday. 


62 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Clara and Mrs. Lacy had a party for the in- 
fant-class at Mrs. Lacy’s house last week, and 
they had a great time with cake and popcorn 
and apples. Mrs Lacy invited me once to go to 
all that bother with her, but I excused myself. 
I was being examined for the high-school and 
could not spare the time. 

But folks like Clara, who have no brains to cul- 
tivate, always have time enough for parties and 
things. Clara hasn’t a particle of pride, for if she 
had she wouldn’t want to stand in Mrs. Lacy’s 
kitchen and wash dishes for a crowd of children 
who do not appreciate the sacrifice a bit. 

But one thing is sure. The children are too 
small to notice Clara’s awful taste in dressing. 
I suppose, really, that her bright colors attract 
those infants. Perhaps, when I was teacher I 
didn’t dress in a sufficiently startling manner. I 
know it is fascinating even to me to see what 
new, original combination of colors Clara can 
dress in. Her drawings will be brilliantly col- 
ored when those crayons arrive. She will make 
that blackboard look like a rainbow. Perhaps, 
though, the colors will not look as startling on 
the board as they look walking around on a girl. 

Well, I wanted to justify myself a little in Mr. 
Gardner’s eyes, for I didn^ quite enjoy having 


HA DA SS AH AND I. 63 

him think I was a heathen, so I asked him for a 
class. 

He looked very much pleased. 

“ I thought you would begin again/’ he said, 
smiling. “ It doesn’t seem quite right to drop 
all church work, does it, Nellie? ” 

And then he made me a present of a class of 
five boys. 

O, those boys! How they did act! I don’t 
believe I shall ever find courage to try them 
again. 

I talked and tried my very best to teach them 
something about the lesson, but I lost my temper 
at last. 

I will not have such actions in this class,” I 
snapped at last, when Jim had stuck a pin into 
Bobby. 

The three freckled boys looked at the two 
unfreckled ones. All was quiet for fully one 
minute. Then Tim hit Heine with his paper, 
and disorder began again. 

Wasn't I glad when Sabbath-school was over! 
The boys were, anyway. 

The Band of Hope met at three o’clock, so I 
hurried home, ate my lunch, rushed back, and 
stayed to that meeting, and played the organ for 
the folks. Then I helped in the mission school, 


64 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

and came home and went out again to church in 
the evening. 

“ I will not neglect any thing,” I said. I 
will be very diligent and good.” 

And I felt that no one could have spent Sun- 
day better, although I dropped into bed so tired 
that I could hardly sleep. 

Monday morning I got up cross. Bessie told 
me I was before I came down stairs. 

Ma noticed it, and she said it was because I 
went to church too much Sunday, but I didn’t 
believe her. I do now, though. I guess it’s safe 
to believe one’s ma, as a usual thing. 

Well, ma baked me a custard, and I was hur- 
rying around to get my lunch-basket ready, and 
I did something and over went that hot custard, 
splash, right into my basket and over my clean 
napkin and all the rest of my lunch ! 

“ O, bother!” I cried out. “I do wish you 
wouldn’t make these custards for me 1 They’re 
just nuisances.” 

And poor ma had been hurrying around and 
doing her very best to make that custard for me, 
too. It was a shame to talk so, for her custards 
are always good. 

Well, I wouldn’t stop any longer. I rushed 
off without any lunch, a proceeding that filled 


HADASSAH AND /. 


65 


ma’s soul with such dismay that she sent a boy 
away over to the high-school at noon with an- 
other lunch. 

And I was so out of sorts all day that it was 
all I could do to recite decently. 

But I never saw such a woman as Miss Towne 
is ; never ! It seems as though there isn’t any 
way of keeping things secret from her. Com- 
positions had to be written this week Friday, 
and what do you suppose the subject she gave 
us was ? “ What I did last Saturday and Sun- 

day.” 

I don’t know what made Miss Towne choose 
such a subject, but I do know that I had to write 
out what I had done. It was Friday morning 
when we wrote those compositions, and Miss 
Towne corrected some of them so that she could 
hand them back that afternoon. Mine was one 
of those. I had not written a word about how 
cross my Sunday made me feel afterward, but I 
found these words in Miss Towne’s writing at 
the end of my composition : 

“ Was your Sunday a real help to you, Nellie? 
Did it strengthen you for the temptations of this 
week? It seems to me that there is such a thing 
as going to meeting so much as to have no time 

left for meditation and prayer. It is well to 
5 


66 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

avoid extremes. I find that if I want to keep 
pleasant and agreeable I must not go out to 
more than one or two services on Sunday. Per- 
haps people whose work is not so wearing as 
mine might go profitably to more. Each person 
has his or her limit, and patience and sweetness 
of temper are as much Christian duties as going 
to meeting.” 

If I didn’t know better, I should think that 
Miss Towne had heard about that custard. 

April 17. — Hadassah brought Miss Towne a 
book called the Prayers of Israel, Miss Towne 
asked her if she would lend it a little while, and 
after Miss Towne was through reading it I 
begged it and brought it home, because I thought 
that mother and grandma would like to see it. 

Hadassah says that the book is used in the 
synagogue. Most of the books used there are 
in Hebrew, or Hebrew and German, but this is 
in Hebrew and English. It is not a very big 
book. One has to commence at the back and 
turn the pages backward. This book is dated in 
the year 7608. 

Grandma told me that if she were in my place 
she would write down some of the more inter- 
esting things in it, because I might never see 


HADASSAff AND I. 67 

such a book again. She never saw one be- 
fore. 

So I will copy here a prayer used in the pass- 
over. The prayer is from the “ Service for the 
Three Feasts.” 

“ But because of our sins we have been carried 
captive from our land, and removed far from our 
country; so that we are not able to perform our 
duty in the habitation which thou hast chosen, 
in that magnificent and holy house on which thy 
name was called ; because of the hand which was 
stretched out against the sanctuary. 

“ May it please thee, O Eternal ! our God, and 
our fathers’ God ! most merciful King ! to return 
unto us, through thine abundant mercy, and to 
compassionate us, and thy sanctuary. O, rebuild 
it speedily, and exalt its glory, O our Father ! our 
King ! manifest the glory of thy kingdom over 
us, speedily shine forth, and exalt thyself in the 
sight of all the living. O, gather our dispersions 
from among the nations, and assemble our out- 
casts from the extremities of the earth ! conduct 
us unto Zion, thy city, with joyful song, and unto 
Jerusalem, the residence of thy holy temple, with 
everlasting joy. And there, in thy presence, will 
we prepare the offerings enjoined us ; even the 
daily offerings according to their order.” 


68 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

And in another place they beg the Lord to 
rebuild the temple, and they pray ; “ Restore the 
priests to their ministry ; the Levites to chant 
with their melody ; and restore Israel unto their 
dwellings ; that then we may go up, and appear 
and worship before thee, on the three appointed 
times of our festivals every year.” 

I read those words to grandma, and she re- 
peated the saying of Christ, “ The hour cometh, 
when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at 
Jerusalem, worship the Father. But the hour 
cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers 
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth : 
for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” 

There are some queer things in the book. In 
the Day of Atonement services the people ask 
God to forgive them “ for the sin which we have 
committed against thee by chattering. And for 
the sin which we have committed against thee 
with the twittering of our eyes.” 

And there is a queer part of the morning 
service, where the men say, “ Blessed art thou, 
O Lord, our God ! King of the universe, who 
hath not made me a woman ! ” 

At this point the women say, “ Blessed art 
thou, O Lord, our God ! King of the universe, 
who hath made me according to his will.” 


HADASSAH AND I. 


69 


I shouldn’t think that Hadassah would like an 
impolite prayer like that. But I guess she doesn’t 
hear it very often. She doesn’t go to the syn- 
agogue frequently, I know, because I asked her 
if she should not want this book by Saturday 
morning, and she said, “ O, no ; keep it as long 
as you like. I hardly ever go to the synagogue.” 

In another place in the book there is an impo- 
lite reference to women: “The wise men say. 
Whosoever converses much with women, brings 
evil on himself.” 

In one place in the book it says that after the 
Jews bury their dead “some are accustomed to 
pull up grass, and throwing it behind them they 
say, ‘ And they shall spring up from the city as 
the grass of the earth.’ Others say, ‘ Remember 
that we are but dust.’ ” 

Here is a prayer that is to be said at home 
after the “ Synagogue Service.” It seems to me 
that it is more of a prayer to angels than to God : 

“ Peace be unto you, ye ministering angels ; 
ye messengers of the Most High, from the 
supreme King of kings, holy and blessed is he. 
[^Three times.'] May your conning be for peace, 
ye messengers of peace, ye messengers of the 
Most High from the supreme King of kings, 
holy and blessed is he. \Three times.] Bless me 


70 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

in peace, ye messengers of peace, ye messengers 
of the Most High, from the supreme Kings of 
kings, holy and blessed is he. [Three times.~\ 
May your departure be in peace, ye messengers 
of peace, ye messengers of the Most High, from 
the supreme King of kings, holy and blessed is 
he. [Three ti7nesl\ 

Grandma found two or three little bits of say- 
ings that she thought were good. One is, “ It is 
improper to set out on a journey before one has 
prayed.” 

And another is the saying of Rabban Gamliel, 
“ Accustom not thyself to give tithes by con- 
jecture.’’ 

“Poor things! ” said grandma, after she had 
finished looking at the volume ; “ poor things ! 
Going to heaven, they think, by their own good 
deeds, when the Bible tells us that there is ‘ none 
that doeth good, no, not one.’ And not a word 
of Christ and the need we have of his salvation 
in the whole book ! ” 

Grandma wiped her eyes, and turned her rock- 
ing-chair so that she could reach her little shelf 
of books. She picked out a small brown vol- 
ume, a queer book that grandma has read a good 
deal, but I have never read through, partly be- 
cause the “ s’s ” bother me ; “s ” being made like 


HA BASS AH AND /. 


71 


“f,” as people used to print in old times. The 
book is George Herbert’s Poems. 

Grandma found a place and handed the open 
book to me. I took it, and found that what she 
wanted me to see was Herbert’s poem on 

“The Jews. 

“ Poore nation, whose sweet sap and juice 
Our scions have purloined, and left you drie : 

Whose streams we got by the Apostles’ sluice. 

And use in baptisme, while ye pine and die : 

Who by not keeping once, became a debtor ; 

And now by keeping lose the letter : 

“ O that my prayers ! mine, alas ! 

O that some Angel might a trumpet sound : 

At which the Church falling upon her face 

Should crie so loud, until the trump were drown’d, 

And by that crie of her deare Lord obtain. 

That your sweet sap might come again ! ” 

I had to read the poem through two or three 
times before I fully understood it. 

“ Then George Herbert was sorry for the 
Jews ? ” I said. 

“Yes,” said grandma; “and many other Chris- 
tians have been sorry for them. For when we 
think that we have salvation through that nation 
and yet it rejects the light, how can we, if we are 
Christians, help being sorry? I wish, Nellie, that 
you could do something for Hadassah. I wish I 
could see her and talk with her myself.” 


72 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Privately I thought that grandma would be 
likely to have a pretty hard time if she should 
try to talk with Hadassah. 

But I said nothing and grandma murmured to 
herself, “ For there is no difference between the 
Jew and the Greek; for the same Lord over all 
is rich unto all that call upon him. For whoso- 
ever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall 
be saved.” 

I forgot to tell grandma what I meant to. It 
was something that I read in John Evelyn s 
Diary. Our class is studying the reigns of the 
Stuarts, and I got that book out of the school- 
library, so as to understand better the English 
life in the days of Charles 11 . ; and in the book 
I found this reference to the Jews. The date 
was January, 1645. Evelyn was speaking about 
a mistaken way of attempting to compel the 
Jews to become converted. He says in that 
place: “A sermon was preached to the Jews at 
Ponte Sisto, who are constrained to sit till the 
houre is don ; but it is with so much malice in 
their countenances, spitting, hum’ing, coughing, 
and motion, that it is almost impossible they 
should heare a word from the preacher. A con- 
version is very rare.” 

And in another place, in 1641, Evelyn says: 


HADASSAH AND I. 


73 


“ Next day I returned to Delft, Rotterdam, The 
Hague, Leyden, Haerlem, and Amsterdam, 
where I went to a Synagogue of the Jews, being 
Saturday ; the ceremonies, ornaments, lamps, 
law, afforded matter for my wonder and en- 
quiry. The women were secluded from the men, 
being seated above in galleries, and having 
their heads muffled with linnen after a fantasticall 
and somewhat extraordinary fashion. They have 
a separate burying-ground, full of sepulchres 
with Hebrew inscriptions, some of them very 
stately. In one, looking through a narrow crev- 
ice, I perceiv’d divers bookes lye about a corpse, 
for it seems when any learned Rabbi dies, they 
bury some of his bookes with him. With the 
help of a stick I raked out some of the leaves 
written in Hebrew characters, but much im- 
paired.” 

I don’t suppose I should notice such passages 
at all if Hadassah were not in our class, for I 
only read the diary for the history in it ; but I 
could not help noticing the passages on the Jews. 

Miss Towne said that Pepyss Diary is better 
than John Evelyn’s, because Pepys’swas written 
at the time the things spoken of occurred, but 
Evelyn’s was written afterward. So I got Pepys’s, 
too, from the library, and I have that book now, 


74 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

and I do like it better than Evelyn’s. Pepys tells 
queer things, such as, “ I did send for a cup of 
tee (a China drink), of which I never had drank 
before ; ” and about going down into the hold of 
an “ Indian shipp,” where he was shown what 
seemed to him the greatest wealth “ that a man 
can see in the world. Pepper scattered through 
every chink, you trod upon it ; and in cloves 
and nutmegs, I walked above the knees.” 

Besides, every now and then Pepys tells some 
kind of a story about things he saw ; for instance, 
he says one day that he went to Dr. Williams, 
who did carry me into his garden, where he hath 
abundance of grapes; and he did show xne how 
a dog that he hath do kill all the cats that come 
thither to kill his pigeons, and do afterward 
bury them ; and do it with so much care that 
they shall be quite covered ; that if the tip of 
the tail hangs out he will take up the cat again 
and dig the hole deeper. Which is very strange ; 
and he tells me that he do believe that he hath 
killed above one hundred cats.” 

Poor pussies ! Such writing as that, though, 
makes the days of King Charles II. seem not so 
very far away after all. 

Well, Pepys has a reference to the Jews, too. 
This extract is dated October 13, 1663 : 


HADASSAff AND /. 


75 


“ After dinner my wife and I, by Mr. Rawlin- 
son’s conduct, to the Jewish Synagogue; where 
the men and boys in their vayles, and the women 
behind a lettice out of sight ; and some things 
stand up, which I believe is their law, in a press 
to which all coming in do bow ; and at the put- 
ting on their vayles do say something, to which 
others that hear the Priest do cry Amen, and the 
party do kiss his vayle. Their service all in a 
singing way, and in Hebrew. And anon their 
Laws that they take out of the press are carried 
by several men, four or five several burthens in 
all, and they do relieve one another ; and whether 
it is that every one desires to have the carrying 
of it, thus they carried it round about the room 
while such a service is singing. And in the end 
they had a prayer for the King, in which they 
* pronounced his name in Portugall ; but the 
prayer, like the rest, in Hebrew. But to see the 
disorder — laughing, sporting, and no attention, 
but confusion in all their service, more like 
brutes than people knowing the true God, would 
make a man forswear ever seeing them more ; 
and indeed I never did see so much, or could 
have imagined there had been any religion 
in the whole world so absurdly performed as 
this.” 


76 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

April 1 8 . — I think that I must have said some- 
thing about Clara that grandmother overheard. 
I am sure that I cannot remember what it was, 
but it is quite evident that grandma thinks I say 
things I ought not to about people. 

I was gossiping on last night to ma. She was 
so busy making biscuit that I don’t believe she 
took in half I said, but grandma told me a story 
afterward. She doesn’t very often tell stories, 
and when she does I have learned always to look 
for the moral. That is a way grandma has 
always had ever since I can remember ; so when- 
ever she begins to tell me a story I straightway 
begin to feel like a convicted criminal. It is the 
result of years of such training, I suppose. 

But the way that grandma started last night 
was the reverse of her usual method. She stated 
the moral first, for she began by saying : “ Nellie, 
I would be alittle more careful about making holes 
in other people’s nets if I were in your place.” 

“ What, ma’am ? ’’ said I, looking up in aston- 
ishment from the very hole-y stockings I was 
darning. 

I do hate to mend stockings. Ma does it for 
me almost always, but she didn’t have time last 
night. Besides, she was almost sick — and, be- 
sides, I ought to do it anyway. 


HADASSAH AND /. 


77 


Grandma looked at me a minute, as if she 
were remembering something. 

“ You need just the lesson that I needed once,” 
said she. “ May be I needed it more than you 
do, but I must say, child, the habit is growing 
on you pretty fast. You are a living proof of 
heredity.” 

“What habit?” said I, giving my darning- 
needle a jerk, but inwardly thankful that grand- 
ma had acknowledged that she was once as bad 
as I. That was a great concession for grandma 
to make. 

“Talking uncharitably about other people,” 
said grandmother, calmly. “ I remember just 
how my Aunt Kezia looked that day when she 
had run over to my house in her blue gingham 
to tell me how to make yeast-cakes. I hadn’t 
been married very long then, and there were a 
good many things about housekeeping that I 
didn’t understand. So Aunt Kezia used to run 
in and tell me about them. 

“ And that morning I had been talking to her 
quite a time. Now, Aunt Kezia couldn’t talk 
very grammatically, but she was smart, for she 
could look straight into people and see their 
faults, and their good points, too, and she was a 
master-hand in applying Scripture. Seems to 


78 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

me I never saw any one who knew more about 
the Bible than Aunt Kezia. 

“ Well, that morning she stood in the door-way, 
blue gingham, white sun-bonnet, and all, and 
she looked hard at me, and she said : ‘ Mary Ann, 
your net’s got a hole in it, and the hole’s gettin’ 
bigger and bigger every day. You wont be no 
kind of a “ fisher of men ” till you get that hole 
mended. And, besides, it’s a mighty mean per- 
son that goes around trying to cut holes in other 
fishers’ nets.’ And Aunt Kezia nodded and went 
away. 

“ Well, I was mystified ! It was just like Aunt 
Kezia to go off with a parable in her mouth. It 
was the way she had always talked to us ‘ chil- 
dren,’ as she called us even after we were grown 
up. And I always noticed that most of her par- 
ables seemed to be directed at me. May be she 
thought that I needed them more than the 
others did. 

“ But what in the world she meant this time 
I didn’t see at all. What I had been doing be- 
fore she spoke was just to tell her that I’d seen 
the minister’s wife throw away a whole loaf of 
bread. The minister’s house was right next 
mine, and so I had a chance to see all the doings 
that went on there. 


HADASSAH AND I. 


79 

“And then when I’d said that Aunt Kezia 
must go to telling me about my net ! 

“Well, I thought and thought, and I could 
not make it out anyway ; so that night, when I 
read my Bible, I turned over to that place in 
Matthew where it fells about the Lord calling 
Peter and Andrew to become ‘ fishers of men ; ’ 
and I read that verse and down a few more till 
I came to the one that tells about James and 
John and Zebedee being mending their nets. 

“ And I sat and looked at the verses, but I 
was so stupid that I didn’t make much out of 
them, and didn’t understand any better* than 
before what Aunt Kezia meant. It takes a 
good while for some of us to see things that 
have to be ^spiritually discerned.’ 

“ But Aunt Kezia came in again the next day, 
and after she had sat quite awhile, and I had 
been talking to her about our deacon that kept 
a coal-yard and yet did not give as good weight 
to his customers, I thought, as a man down town 
who was not a church member at all. Aunt 
Kezia looked at me sharply, and she said again : 
‘ Mary Ann, don’t go round cuttin’ holes in 
other folks’ nets. It is mighty mean business, 
as I told you yesterday, ’specially for folks who 
pretend to be fishers themselves.’ 


8o NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“ And then I had to ask her to tell me what 
she meant. 

“ ‘ Do you mean to say that, with all your 
bringin’ up, you never were taught nothin’ about 
bein’ “ fishers of men ? ” ’ asked Aunt Kezia, as 
she put on her spectacles and looked over at me. 
‘ Now, Mary Ann, don’t you know that it is the 
bounden duty of every one of us Christians to 
be catchin’ fish, which is men and women, for 
the Lord ? And how are we going to do it if 
we don’t keep our nets mended ? I reckon 
James and John wouldn’t have got many fish 
out of that Sea of Galilee if they hadn’t gone to 
work sometimes with Zebedee and looked over 
those nets to see how many holes there were. 

“‘And, Mary Ann, I’m awful afraid that if 
you’ve done any fishin’ lately you haven’t caught 
any thing, for I tell you that if you was to speak 
to any body who knows you real well, and if you 
was to ask such a person to become a Christian, 
just as like as not he’d up and say to you, 
“ Well, I don’t want to be one anyhow, if I 
would talk about my neighbors in the spiteful 
way you do.” 

“ ‘ And so that would be a hole in your net, 
and that man would get out of it. 

“ ‘ Now, child, I didn’t want to hurt your feel- 


HADASSA/I AND L 


8l 


ings, but I felt that somebody ought to talk 
right out plain to you, and I think I’ve known 
you long enough so I might.’ 

“ I did not say any thing. Really I felt con- 
siderably hurt, but I knew Aunt Kezia too well 
to make any answer. She always did get the 
best of me when there was any parabling to be 
done. 

“ So, after Aunt Kezia had taken a breath and 
had given her specs a push, they having slipped 
almost to the end of her nose from talking so 
emphatically, she said : “ Mary Ann, about that 
making of holes in other fishers’ nets, don’t you 
know that if you had told any outsider about 
that loaf of bread it might have prejudiced such 
a person, so that when the minister’s wife tried 
to do him some good she couldn’t have done 
any? That’s what I mean by cuttin’ holes in 
other folks’ nets, and don’t you do it any more.’ 

“ Well, after Aunt Kezia had gone I couldn’t 
get her talk out of my mind, and at last I sat 
down and began to count the persons whose nets 
I had made holes in. I thought first thing of 
Mrs. Somers. (You don’t know the folks, 
Nellie, so it wont make any difference if I do 
tell you the names ; the folks lived so long ago 

and so far away from here, and they are almost all 
6 


82 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

dead, anyway.) Well, I thought of Mrs. Somers, 
and how I had said that she was not any too 
good, after all, if - she did go out nights and teach 
in the mission-school, for she lay abed mornings 
and let her husband get his own breakfast, and 
the housework was dreadfully neglected. So, 
may be, by saying that I had made a hole in 
Mrs. Somers’s net, because perhaps some of the 
mission-scholars heard what I said, and would 
not listen to Mrs. Somers so well after that. 

“ And then I thought of the time when I said 
that I guessed the president of the Ladies’ 
Sewing Society was not any too pleasant at 
home, if she did shine in church-work, for her 
husband had been away for a year, and some 
folks did say that it was because she was so 
cross and fussy that he couldn’t live with her. 

“ That was a dreadful hole for me to make. 

“ And then I thought about others I had said 
things of ; about one family’s caring more for 
fine clothes than for giving to the church, and 
about another man’s not being given to telling 
things just as they were, but being always used 
to stretching the truth a little more than it ought 
to have been. And I had said that another 
woman was proud because she was rich, and that 
the secretary of the Sunday-school was so con- 


HADASSAH AND /. 


83 


ceited that he wanted every body to do just as 
he said. And there were quite a crowd of other 
folks that I don't remember now, but I re- 
membered well enough then that I had been 
speaking unkindly about them. And to think 
that all those in whose nets I had been making 
holes were the Lord’s fishers, every one of them. 

“ For, you see, it wasn’t as if I had said such 
things to church-members about other church- 
members. I knew well enough that I hadn’t 
been careful, and I had talked to outside folks 
about my brothers and sisters. 

“ Well, I just made up my mind that that hole 
in my net was going to be mended right away. 
But it wasn’t, not for a long time, and the mend- 
ing kept breaking so that even now I always have 
to keep a sharp eye on that part of my net. 

“ But one night I got straight up in our little 
prayer-meeting, and told the folks about things. 
We didn’t have very big prayer- meetings, and 
I’d known the folks there, most of them, all my 
life, so it wasn’t so very hard to tell them. 

“ And I told the folks about the nets, and I 
said : ‘ O, brethren. I’m afraid I’ve made holes 
in ever so many of yours ! And there’s no telling 
how much better ‘ fishers of men ’ you might 
have been if it hadn’t been for me. But, O, 


84 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

I’m ever so sorry! And, brethren, if you see 
that I fall into this fault again tell me, wont 
you ?’ 

“ Well, when meeting was done, the leader, 
who was Deacon Strong that night came to me, 
and he shook hands and wiped his eyes, and he 
said: ‘ Sister, I guess a good many of us need to 
take your lesson to heart.’ 

Well, I never thought of that before, but I 
was sure they were welcome if it would do them 
any good. But, as for me, I asked the Lord to 
tell me where to cast my net and to help me to 
be in earnest about fishing for souls, for I knew 
I had not any too much time left to do it in.” 

Grandma stopped, but I suppose she wants 
me to take that lesson to heart. Well, if I don’t 
want to hear from her I mustn’t talk gossip here- 
after, in her hearing, at least. But I do think it 
requires a good deal of meekness to confess one’s 
sins to one’s grandchild the way she did to me. 
I suppose she hopes it will do me good. 

April 20. — There has been a very sudden 
death in the senior class. There are only about 
twenty seniors this term, and of course we lower 
classes all look up to the seniors, anyway, so 
we know almost all that class by name. They 


HADASSAH AND /. 


85 


march through the junior room every day to go 
to their room, and we all look at them with great 
reverence. Nina le Page says she only hopes 
that she will be a senior some day ; then she will 
snub all the lower classes. Why, there is one 
girl in the senior class who positively wont look 
at us juniors at all, she feels so big. And yet I 
know she doesn’t stand high in her own class, 
and she wears the same ruffle around her neck 
for weeks, till it is perfectly black. I’ve heard 
the seniors myself talk about her being so untidy. 

Well, that wasn’t what I started to write. 
There was one boy in that class who always 
stood head of them all. He was a short fellow 
with cheeks that were always red. 

One day he was absent, and I heard the 
seniors say that he was sick. And he kept on 
growing worse every day. The doctors said that 
he had typhoid fever, and yesterday he died. 

Principal Thorn told the seniors, and I guess 
there wasn’t much reciting after that. The girls 
all cried. I don’t know but some of the boys 
did, too, but I saw the senior girls. They all sat 
down together on the stairs, and they talked 
down low, and they cried. And all the class are 
going to the funeral. They’ve draped his desk 
with black. 


86 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Nina le Page peeped in through the door to 
see how the desk looked, and she said to me : 
“ I hope I sha’n’t die before I graduate. It seems 
as though it would be too bad to waste one’s 
work that way. What becomes of all that 
algebra and geometry and Latin and the other 
things he’s been cramming into his head for the 
last three years ? Do you suppose that he could 
make any use of such things now? ” 

“ I don’t believe you ought to talk that way,” 
I said. 

“Why not?” asked Nina, innocently. “Does 
it make you feel uncomfortable ? Be warned in 
time, my child. If you go on studying as reck- 
lessly as you have done since I’ve known you 
you wont graduate from this school, either, two 
years from now.” 

But that was not what made me “ uncomforta- 
ble.” It doesn’t seem to me that if I had to die 
this minute my work in this world would join on 
well with any work in heaven. For when I come 
down to absolute facts it seems to me that I 
know just how those disciples felt when they 
disputed together about “ who should be 
greatest.” I was Number One again this 
month. I have been that all this term. I 
shouldn’t have been, though, if ma had not 


HADASSAH AND /. 


87 


sacrificed a dollar of hers. I needed a physical 
geography for school, and ma didn’t like to ask 
father for it, because she knew that he needed all 
his money to pay expenses. And so poor ma 
gave her dreadful daughter the one dollar that 
paid for the book but really ought to have been 
spent in getting ma some gloves. That’s a good 
deal like my mother. 

May 15. — Miss Towne showed me a composi- 
tion that Hadassah handed in to her. We were 
not required to read our compositions out loud 
this time, and we might choose our own subjects. 

And what did Hadassah choose to write about 
but “The History of Israel !” 

I should not have thought that she would 
like to write about that. If I were a Jewess I 
don’t know whether I should want to hide my 
nationality or not, but I certainly wouldn’t speak 
very much about it. 

But I suppose Hadassah wrote of the things 
she thought about, and, after all, it wasn’t as 
though she had to get up and read it before 
us. She thought that only Miss Towne would 
see it. 

But Miss Towne showed it to me privately. 
She must think that I take a great interest in 


88 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

that girl, for Miss Towne didn’t show it to any- 
one else besides me. 

The composition was really quite queer. It 
contained things I never heard before — histor- 
ical things I mean. Hadassah is always reading 
history. One of the things was about the way 
“ Saint Louis,” Louis IX. of France, burned 
the Talmud. He had twenty-four cartfuls of 
great volumes burned in Paris in 1254. 

And Hadassah told how one of the old rab- 
bis long ago opposed the study of the Greek 
language because he said people ought to study 
the law of Moses instead. 

The rabbi said: “It is written that ‘thou 
shalt meditate therein day and night.’ Find me 
an hour which is neither day nor night, and in 
that you may study Greek.” 

“Well, I declare!” I said when I read that. 
“Why, Miss Towne, what do you suppose that 
rabbi would have said to us going to school and 
studying books all day?” 

Miss Towne smiled. 

“ He would have been horrified, I suppose,” 
she said ; “but I hope, Nellie, that school-studies 
do not prevent any of us from studying, if not 
the law of Moses, yet some portion of our Bible 
daily.” 


HADASSAH AND I. 


89 


That was all Miss Towne said, but I did not 
answer her, for suddenly I remembered that I 
had left home that morning without reading even 
a single Bible verse. I am not usually quite so 
careless. I rush through a chapter somehow, 
but that morning I was in such a hurry that I 
didn’t think of it. I suppose I lay in bed too 
long, thinking how brilliantly I intend to 
graduate from this school two years hence. It 
was foolish, of course, but I’m always doing 
foolish things. 

Well, about that composition. Other things 
that Hadassah wrote were quotations from 
Jewish writers. One was : “ The sins of all those 
are forgiven who inhabit the land of Israel.” 

And another : “ He who walks four cubits in 
the land of Israel is sure of being a son of the 
life that is to come.” 

And she quoted the saying of the Talmud : 
“ Whosoever afflicts his neighbor, even by mere 
words, is obliged to ask his pardon ; and if the 
offended man has died, then take ten persons 
with thee, stand before his tomb, and say, ‘ I 
have sinned against the God of Israel and against 
thee.’ ” 

Then Hadassah referred to Judas Maccabaeus 
quite a number of times in her composition. 


90 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

I had just been reading about him. I was 
bound that I would know something about the 
things that occurred in between the Old and the 
New Testaments. I didn’t know a single thing 
about those four hundred years. They were a 
perfect blank to me, and I was ashamed of my- 
self. 

But I declare it does seem to me that there 
are such hundreds and hundreds of things that 
one ought to know to be even passably well 
educated ! Why, I begin to feel as if I’d like to 
know every thing. That is the way Ada Morris 
told me she felt when she went to Europe last 
year. She said she saw every single day lots 
and lots of things, old monuments and ruined 
towers and landmarks, that referred to something 
that occurred in history ever so many years ago, 
and Ada didn’t know about the history, for she 
wasn’t out of the grades when her father took 
her to Europe, and she had never studied any 
thing but United States history, and, of course, 
that didn’t help much in Europe. Half the 
time she didn’t even know that some person had 
ever lived, and she said that she kept poring 
over the guide-books and reading what they 
said, and then she didn’t know much better 
than before. And so, at last, she was completely 


HADASSAII AND /. 


91 

disgusted with her own ignorance, and she told 
her father that she wished he would take her 
home. So he did, and she is studying now ever 
so hard, harder than she ever did before, but she 
is not even in the high-school yet. 

Well, I’m wandering away from that composi- 
tion. 

As I wrote, I got a book about Judas Macca- 
baeus out of the library. And I do think that 
he was a brave man. I was glad I had read 
about him when I saw Hadassah’s composition, 
for I should have felt ashamed if I had never 
heard his name. 

Well, I thought w'hen I read that book that 
Judas Maccabaeus was just perfectly splendid 
and brave to dare to fight all those battles. 
And I read how his father, Mattathias, killed the 
apostate that came to the village of Modin to 
set up the idol altar, and I read about the vic- 
tories that Judas had afterward at the battles 
of Bethhoron and Emmaus and Bethsur and 
Adasa, and how the wicked General Nicanor, 
who had raised up his right arm and sworn with 
a blasphemous oath to come and destroy the 
holy house, was killed and his head and his 
right arm were cut off and carried back to Jeru- 
salem and placed opposite the temple. 


92 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

I remember that the book said that the Jew- 
ish “ Feast of Lights,” or Hanuchah, is observed 
in memory of the restoration of the temple 
service by Judas Maccabaeus, after the violation 
of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, or An- 
tiochus Epimanes, “the Mad.” There were 
new vails made for the temple, and a new 
candlestick, and tables of show-bread, and an 
altar of incense. And crowns and shields of 
gold were hung in front of the temple facade. 
And for eight days there were feasts and sacri- 
fices and processions of priests bearing palm- 
branches. And now the “Feast of Lights” 
celebrates that restoration, as I said. The feast 
comes in December, and every Jewish house is 
expected to have a light, and some of the rich 
Jews have oil lamps of gold or silver in the 
form of the candlestick of the old temple. 

After reading that book I took down Long- 
fellow and read “Judas Maccabaeus” in that, 
and I liked it ever so much. I guess that know- 
ing the history made me like the poem better ; 
anyway, I couldn’t stop reading it till I read it 
through, from where Antiochus cries out that 
the Jews 

“ Must be civilized. 

They must be made to have more gods than one ; 

And goddesses besides,” 


HADASSAH AND /. 


93 


down to the end where Antiochus cries out in 
agony : 

“ I will become a Jew, and will declare 
Through all the world that is inhabited 
The power of God.” 

I believe I always skipped that poem before. 
I don’t know why I did, for I think it is ever so 
interesting now. That’s the difference between 
not knowing the history and knowing it. I 
don’t wonder that Ada wished she knew some- 
thing when she was in Europe. 

And I don’t believe that Longfellow makes 
Maccabaeus out to be any too brave when the 
captains are scared over the sight of Nicanor’s 
troops and say : 

“ Look forth and see ! 

The morning sun is shining on their shields 
Of gold and brass ; the mountains glisten with them, 
And shine like lamps. And we who are so few 
And poorly armed, and ready to faint with fasting. 

How shall we fight against this multitude ? ” 

and Judas Maccabaeus answers : 

“ The victory of a battle standeth not 
In multitudes, but in the strength that cometh 
From heaven above. The Lord forbid that I 
Should do this thing, and flee away from them. 

Nay, if our hour be come, then let us die ; 

Let us not stain our honor.” 


94 


NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 


And even when the captains remind him what 
day it is, and say: 

“ 'Tis the Sabbath. 

Wilt thou fight on the Sabbath, Maccabasus.^ ” 

Judas is not to be put off, and answers: 

“ Ay ; when I fight the battles of the Lord, 

I fight them on his day, as on all others. 

Have ye forgotten certain fugitives 
That fled once to these hills, and hid themselves 
In caves ? How their pursuers camped against them 
Upon the Seventh Day, and challenged them 
And how they answered not, nor cast a stone. 

Nor stopped the places where they lay concealed. 

But meekly perished with their wives and children. 
Even to the number of a thousand souls? 

We who are fighting for our laws and lives 
Will not so perish.” 

How I do run on and skip away from that 
composition ! But really, after I had read that 
history and Longfellow’s poem I was in such a 
state of mind that I almost went to Hadassah 
and congratulated her on there having been so 
brave a member of the Jewish race. I suppose 
I might as well have congratulated her about 
Gideon or Deborah’s having lived, but then I 
have known about those two individuals for a 
good while, whereas Judas Maccabaeus is a com- 
paratively new character to me. And I reflected 
that Hadassah would probably listen to my 


HADASSAH AND I. 


95 


rhapsody, and then look at me calmly enough, 
and say: “Well, I am glad you have found it 
out. Of course, I knew all about it a good 
many years ago. But you could not be ex- 
pected to know.” 

Not that I have ever heard Hadassah make 
so unladylike a speech as that, but I can im- 
agine how I should feel if she should take it into 
her head to do so. I am afraid that my zealous 
admiration for the Hasmonean family, and for 
the Maccabaean leader in particular, might be 
checked a trifle. 

But when I came to the last of that history, 
and read how brave Judas Maccabaeus had three 
thousand men in his army, and all of them but 
eight hundred deserted him, and he was killed, 
I just felt so angry with those cowards that ran 
away that I didn’t know what to do. I think 
such men did not deserve such a leader as Judas 
was. But I suppose that that last defeat of his 
was part of the purpose that God had in regard 
to the Jews and the subject condition that they 
should be in when Christ should come, so I 
ought not to have felt disappointed. But I was 
sorry for Maccabaeus after all. 

But to go back to what Hadassah did write in 
that composition. I did not know before that 


g6 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

some of the Jews have so queer ideas about 
dead people. Hadassah wrote that the Zohar 
says of a dead person: “ During seven days the 
soul comes and goes from the tomb to its house, 
and from its house to the tomb ; after seven 
days the body remains as it is and the soul goes 
where it goes.” 

And Hadassah told about the belief in the 
Chibbout hakeber , the “flagellation of the tomb,” 
that has been believed in by the Arabs, who 
borrowed it from the Jews. This belief is that 
the angel of death sits on the sepulcher, while 
the soul goes into the corpse and lifts it to its feet. 
The angel then examines the dead person and 
strikes him with a chain, half of iron, half of fire, 
so that at the first blow all the limbs become dis- 
jointed ; at the second, the bones are destroyed ; 
and at the third, the body falls to dust and ashes. 

And Hadassah told of the Moslem belief in 
the two angels, Monkir and Nakir, who exam- 
ine a dead person as to his orthodoxy and con- 
duct. If he can answer satisfactorily, the body 
rests in peace ; but otherwise the deceased is 
struck on the temples with iron rods “ till his 
cries are heard from east to west.” Then earth 
is pressed upon the body, which is then gnawed 
by ninety dragons. 


HADASSAff AND I. 


97 


“Isn’t that horrid?” I said to Miss Towne, 
when I read that. “You don’t suppose that 
Hadassah believes any such stuff, do you ? ” 

“ No,” said Miss Towne. “ It is certainly a 
shocking picture of past superstition, but I don’t 
think that Hadassah puts confidence in such 
tales. She only put them in to enliven the 
composition.” 

“ Well, they do enliven it with a vengeance,” 
I said, as I rose to go ; “ they enliven it to the 
nightmare point. I don’t believe you ever had 
a queerer composition handed in to you, Miss 
Towne, now did you? I guess you will give us 
subjects of your own choosing next time.” 

But Miss Towne only laughed and said noth- 
ing. May be she has seen queerer compositions 
than I ever imagined. 

But the idea of Hadassah putting such stuff 
into a composition ! I wonder if she was ever 
frightened with such stories when she was a 
child. I don’t remember being frightened by 
death when I was little. I remember the first 
person whose funeral I went to. She was a girl 
I had known and played with, and I cried a 
good deal, but I was not frightened. I guess 
that it makes considerable difference how death 
is first presented and talked about to children. 

7 


98 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

May i6. — Yes, there was one thing more in 
Hadassah’s composition. She spoke about the 
tree Sidrat Almuntaha, and she quoted the fol- 
lowing legend in regard to it. This is it as 
nearly as I can remember the words : 

“ As Solomon returned from Damascus he 
heard a cry on the wind, ‘ O God of Abraham, 
release me from life ! ’ 

“ Solomon hastened in the direction of the 
voice and found a very aged man, who said he 
had asked God to suffer him to live till there 
arose a mighty prophet in the land. 

“ ‘ I am that prophet,’ said Solomon. 

“ Then the angel of death caught away the 
old man’s soul. 

“ Solomon exclaimed : ‘ Thou must have been 
beside me to have acted with such speed, thou 
angel of death.’ 

“ But the angel answered : ‘ Great is thy mis- 
take. Know that I stand on the shoulders of 
an angel whose head reaches ten thousand years’ 
journey above the seventh heaven, and whose 
feet are five hundred years’ journey beneath 
the earth. He it is who tells me when I am to 
fetch a soul. His eyes are ever fixed on the 
tree Sidrat Almuntaha, which bears as many 
leaves as there are living men in the world ; 


HADASSAH AND /. 


99 


when a man is born, a new leaf buds out ; when 
a man is about to die, the leaf fades, and at his 
death falls off ; and when the leaf withers, I fly 
to fetch the soul, the name of which is inscribed 
upon the leaf.’ ” 

It seems to me that Hadassah knows a good 
many queer things. I wonder if she has not 
studied the traditions of her people more than 
she has the Bible itself? 

But I need not criticise other people much, 
for I do not study my Bible a great deal myself. 
I cannot seem to get time. But I read it more 
than I used to, for awhile ago I became shocked 
at the way I was neglecting it, and I put a New 
Testament into my pocket and brought the 
book with me to school. I keep it in my desk, 
and so sometimes when I am not too hurried, 
even if I have not read at home, I do get a 
chance to read a few words at school. But I 
know well enough that I do not read the Bible 
and study it as thoroughly as it is the duty of a 
Christian to do. 

May 22. — Bessie has the measles. It is against 
rules for a scholar to come to school when there 
is any contagious disease in the family, so I had 
to leave school just now when the final exami- 


lOO NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

nations are beginning. A number of the schol- 
ars are in the same fix, for measles seems to pre- 
vail just now. But the teachers all told me that 
I should be promoted anyway, because I have 
stood so high all the year. So next term I shall 
be a “ middler,” without having to be bothered 
with the final examinations, either. 

Nina le Page ran down stairs after me as I was 
carrying off my books that morning when I told 
Mi'^.s Towne about the measles. 

“ O, Nellie, Pm real sorry!” Nina cried out, 
catching me by the shoulders and shaking me. 
“ What did possess you to invite the measles to 
your house when you wanted to be Number One 
this last month, so as to finish your junior year 
splendidly? I’m so sorry for you ! It’s too bad!” 

“ No, it isn’t,” I said. ‘‘ Don’t you suppose 
I can take what the Lord sends me ? ” 

I don’t know what made me say that to Nina. 
I think it was something that I remembered 
hearing Mr. Gardner say in last Sunday’s ser- 
mon about “ all things working together for 
good to them that love God.” But I do not be- 
lieve that that was a very good speech to make 
to Nina. She looked disgusted. 

“ Pshaw ! ” she said, and she ran off up stairs 
and never even called out “ Good-bye.” 


HADASSAH AND I. 


lOI 


Besides, I am afraid that what I said was not 
strictly true. Do I always “ take what the Lord 
sends me ” in as patient a way as my words to 
Nina seemed to mean ? 

I did not know that I was so tired, so almost 
exhausted by this term’s work. I can hardly go 
around the house. I feel so tired all the time 
now that the excitement of school is gone. I 
must have used up all the energy that was meant 
to last me months. 

Every day now I hurry through with my part 
of the housework, wrap a shawl around me, and 
lie down on the lounge, feeling so worn out that 
I don’t know how to move. And in five min- 
utes or less I am fast asleep. I’ve cut my hair 
short, or rather grandma did it for me, and ma 
gives me doses of some dreadfully bitter stuff to 
make me strong. If I cared to moralize I might 
state that bitter things are often strengthening 
ones, but I am too tired to moralize at all. 

Hadassah is Number One this last month, of 
course. I knew she would be, now that I’m not 
there to hinder her. Perhaps if I hadn’t tried so 
hard to be Number One I might have been 
stronger now and able to help ma about nursing 
Bessie, instead of being another cause of worry. 
But ma doesn’t need to worry over me. All I 


102 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

need is rest and sleep. I don’t feel as if I should 
ever want to look at a book again. 

June 4. — Bessie was very still, and so was I, 
one afternoon about two weeks ago. I was ly- 
ing on the lounge, almost asleep, when I heard 
her say: “ O, hum ! ” in a very doleful tone. 

“What is the matter? ” I asked, opening one 
sleepy eye. 

“ O, I’m so tired of lying here! I wish I’d 
ever get over these horrid measles,” Bess 
groaned. “ I don’t believe that any body ever 
had such a time as I have. It’s so pokey here.” 

I opened the other eye just in time to see a 
big teardrop off the end of Bessie’s nose. Wasn’t 
it provoking when I felt too used up to amuse 
her at all ? 

“ Never mind,” I said, as I turned my head 
away from the light; “you know that you will 
be well in a little while, and then you can run 
and have a good time once more. It isn’t as 
though you were going to be shut up in the 
house all your life as so many people are.” 

“That doesn’t help me much now,” grumbled 
Bessie, perversely. 

I lay still a few minutes trying to decide 
whether to go to sleep or to wake up and amuse 


HADASSAH AND I. 


103 


Bess. And then the door-bell rang, and I had 
to go down, and if it wasn’t that Clara Wilson ! 

I knew I’d have to give up my nap then, for 
Clara never does seem to understand that I don’t 
care to be bothered with her. 

We talked awhile, and then I heard Bessie 
calling me. 

“ I must go up and see what Bess wants,” I 
said, rising. 

I thought perhaps Clara would go then, but, 
no. That was far from her thoughts. 

“ Mayn’t I go with you ? ” asked Clara, jump- 
ing up. “ Wouldn’t she like to have a little com- 
pany? I wont make her talk too much.” 

So, of course, I had to let her go with me, and 
when we went into the room, sure enough, Bess 
was crying. 

“ Mamma’s gone and grandma’s down stairs, 
and I haven’t any body to talk to, and I’m ever 
so lonesome,” she wailed, rubbing her eyes to 
get the tears out of them. “ Besides, folks wont 
let me read, ’cause my eyes have the measles yet.” 

“And you ought not to cry, either, for that 
will make your eyes worse,” I began. 

But Clara called out over my shoulder : “ Well, 
you wont be lonely any more. I’ve come to 
cheer you up.” 


104 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

If any thing in the world could “ cheer a body 
up ” it would have been Clara’s costume at that 
particular minute, for she was dressed with her 
usual taste, there being four distinct shades of 
red on her, to my certain knowledge, and her 
hat had a bright, bright yellow ribbon on it that 
made her look like a sunflower in full bloom. 

Bess stopped crying immediately. 

After Clara had talked quite awhile, she said 
suddenly to Bessie : 

“ How should you like to do something to help 
some other sick persons ? ” 

“ Why, how could I ? ” asked Bess, looking 
amazed at such a proposition. 

“I’ll show you,” said Clara; and she jumped 
up, ran down stairs, out the front door, down 
the steps, and out of the front gate without say- 
ing “ Good-bye.” 

Bess and I looked at one another. 

“ Well, isn’t that polite ! ” I said, sinking back 
on my lounge. 

“ I guess that she’s coming back,” answered 
Bess, all excitement. “ She’ll come and tell me 
what to do.” 

So Bess watched by the window for twenty 
minutes. She insisted on my pushing her bed 
so she could see the front gate, after which feat 


HADASSAH AND I. 


105 

I returned to my lounge again. After the twen- 
ty minutes Clara really appeared. 

“ Didn’t I tell you so ! ” croaked Bess. “ Do 
go down, Nellie, and let her in.” 

So I rose with a groan, put away my nap 
somewhere in the future, and descended to let in 
our visitor. 

She bore a big, square pasteboard box in one 
hand and a bottle of mucilage in the other, 
while an old blank-book was under her arm. 

“ Now,” said Clara, sitting down in a chair by 
Bessie’s bed, “ I’ll tell you all about it. I’ve 
been home and got these things. I ought to 
have stopped to explain, but the idea struck me, 
and I knew you’d like it, and away I hopped be- 
fore I thought. Well, when I was in the city 
last winter I used sometimes to go to the Chil- 
dren’s Hospital, where all the sick boys and girls 
who have no fathers and mothers to take care 
of them are nursed, you know. 

“ As I went through the wards I used to see 
once in awhile an old scrap-book full of pictures. 
You have no idea how much the little sick chil- 
dren seemed to enjoy looking at the pictures. 
Sometimes the children would ask one of the 
nurses to tell them stories about some pictures 
that were admired very much, and she would 


lo6 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

sit down and make up all sorts of funny stories 
for the amusement of the little folks. 

“ Well, I thought that the scrap-book idea was 
such a good one that I would try it myself, and 
after that I used to save all the pictures that I 
found, and I kept them in this big box. But 
someway I never have found time to make any 
scrap-books ; and now, Bess, if you think that 
you would like to do something for the sick 
children, here is a chance. I think a book made 
out of these would be a great deal prettier than 
any that I saw at the hospital.” 

Then Clara opened the box and showed it 
full of all kinds of scrap-pictures — Chinese ladies 
with gay dresses and fine fans, pictures of dogs, 
cats, kittens, chickens, and so on, some colored 
and some plain. 

Bess went into raptures and wanted to begin 
at once. Every thing was so pretty that she 
was puzzled to know what to take for her frontis- 
piece. At last she decided to begin her book 
with the picture of a little runaway boy whose 
face she admired very much. 

Then quiet reigned, for Clara left, Bess consid- 
erately kept her raptures to herself, and I did 
get my nap, after all. 

Bessie pasted all the rest of the afternoon. 


HADASSAH AND I. 


107 


She had the scrap-book about half full by night. 
It was really pretty, too. She has pasted every 
day since then, and I am thankful to have Bess 
off my hands, even if Clara is the means of it. 

Bessie has almost five books made now. 
Clara's hoard of pictures gave out, but Mrs. Gard- 
ner heard what Bessie was doing, and sent her a 
lot of scraps. And ma hunted up old peach and 
pear and plum cans, and soaked them and took 
pictures of fruit off from the outsides. 

Cousin Tom even gave Bessie his collection of 
advertising cards, and pa found some old books 
for Bess to paste the pictures into. Even Biddy 
Maloney, our washerwoman, brought a lovely 
picture of some grapes. She found it in a package 
of raisins that she bought, and she brought the 
picture “ for the darlint to paste for the sick 
childer." Queer that Biddy should think of it. 

And I found a circus-poster that was adorned 
with a fine lion. Bess cut him out and gave him 
a position of honor in the book she was making 
then. 

Bess and Clara have been making great plans 
about going to the city next Christmas, and visit- 
ing the Children's Hospital together, giving the 
sick folks those picture-books. Seems to me 
that Clara will insist on being intimate with our 


io8 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

family, whether we want her to be or not. I tell 
Bessie that all the city-folks will turn around on 
the streets to see such a walking rainbow as Clara 
will be ; but Bess don’t seem to care. She says 
she presumes that some of the city folks haven’t 
any taste, either. 

Bessie says, moreover, that she shall always 
know what to do with all the scrap-pictures that 
she will come across during her whole life. She 
is going to take her paint-box and color the pict- 
ures, when her eyes become strong again. 

I cannot get up much enthusiasm over the 
project. I’m too worn out to have much en- 
thusiasm about any thing. 


HAD ASS AH AND /. 


109 


middIvE: year. 

July 6. — No one need expect me to become 
Number One this year. Not that I am not as 
ambitious as ever. I am more so, if any thing. 
But I am going to save my strength for the senior 
year. If I should work as hard this year as I did 
last I should have no strength left to try for that 
valedictory. I would rather be Number One on 
Commencement Day than now. I don’t believe 
Hadassah has thought of that. I suppose she 
will go on trying as hard as she can. Well, if she 
becomes tired out this year it will not be my 
fault. I shall not warn her. She can look ahead 
as well as I can. 

We have a new Latin teacher this term ; stiff 
and tall and wears spectacles. There’s a new 
history teacher, too, with a screwed-up mouth 
and a way of looking at you that makes you know 
she’s cross. 

There is a new scholar, too, in our class. Her 
name is Inez Bayley, and she is the daughter of 
one of mother’s friends who has just moved to 
this place. Inez is a church member, so now, at 
least, I can divide the responsibility of “ setting 


no NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

an example.” She whispers, though sometimes, 
in school, but she’s as good as can be. Her fa- 
ther is a minister, and Inez is going to be one 
of the middle class Greek pupils. 

A good many of our class are missing at the 
beginning of this term. Some of them were not 
promoted, and others have left school altogether. 
I’m sorry now that I didn’t treat some of them 
better last term. There was that tall, awkward, 
red-haired, lame Callie Jenkins. She had a 
wooden foot that thumped on the floor when she 
walked. I guess she was poor ; anyway, her 
folks always looked poor-folksey. They used to 
bring her to school in an old buggy with a broken- 
down looking white horse, because Callie couldn’t 
walk. The girls say that the horse died this last 
vacation. May be that’s the reason why Callie 
hasn’t come back to school. Anyway, I wish I 
had been a little kinder to her. Of course, I never 
had any quarrel with her, but I suppose I did 
neglect her. She used to sit at her desk during 
recess, because she didn’t feel like limping down 
stairs, and I do suppose I might have stayed with 
her sometimes and talked, or something. Almost 
all the girls neglected her. I think it must have 
been because she wasn’t interesting. Some peo- 
ple are so stupid that it’s a trial to be obliged to 


HAD ASS AH AND /. 


Ill 


have any thing to do with them, but may be it’s 
a duty. It wasn’t Callie’s fault that she was 
stupid. She tried hard enough. But it doesn’t 
look natural not to see her sitting around and to 
hear her say “ Ma’am ? ” in such a tone of hope- 
less stupidity when Miss Towne would ask her 
a question. 

I think all these high-school studies were so 
many enigmas to Callie. She floundered deeper 
and deeper in them. I ’m glad I helped her about 
the algebra one day. She was delighted.' That 
saved her from disgrace that day, at least. But 
I might have helped her more. I was discour- 
aged, though, for she said, as she looked over the 
examples that I had done for her : “ I don’t see 
why they have to lug that ‘ x ’ into every one of 
the sums. What do they do it for.^ I never 
knew folks cared so much about ‘ x ’ till I came to 
this school.” 

“ Why, ‘ X ’ stands for the unknown quantity, 
the answer that you have to get,” said I. 

But the perplexity deepened on Callie’s face. 

“ What makes them ? ” she said. “ Maw ” 
(Callie always did call her mother “ maw ”) “ said 
she thought may be it had something to do with 
the cross. She’d seen them kind of crosses in 
books, and she said she ’lowed that the man who 


1 12 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

made algebry must have been a powerful good 
man, or he wouldn’t have wanted to put a cross 
in every sum. Maw says she should think that 
Jew girl would be ashamed to study algebry.” 

After that conversation is it much wonder that 
I didn’t try explaining algebry ” to Callie any 
more ? 

August lo. — Hadassah is Number One and I 
am Number Two. The girls looked surprised, 
and Nina said : “ Have you found out. Miss Mer- 
ritt, that ‘ the paths of glory lead but to the 
grave?’ In other words, has your common 
sense grown enough so that you perceive that it 
isn’t well to work so hard for the distinguished 
honor of being Number One as to be sick all 
vacation ? ” 

“ I’m not going to be Number One this year,” 
I answered. 

“Wise girl,” said Nina, nodding. “If you 
don’t study too hard perhaps your hair will grow 
again, and you can graduate next year with as 
respectable a looking pug on the back of your 
head as any of the rest of us. You’d be bald, 
Nellie, if you studied as hard from now till then 
as you studied last term. Think how a bald 
senior would look graduating ! ” 


HADASSAH AND /. 


But neither Nina nor Hadassah has any idea 
of the mighty plans that I have for next year. 
But Nina turned back to say: “If you do be- 
come bald before then, Nellie, may be we can 
arrange the laurels of fame that you have won 
so that they will partially hide your shining 
skull.” 

Nina stays anywhere from Number Six to 
Number Ten, herself, and so she doesn’t seem to 
be much worried. I couldn’t be satisfied so ; but 
may be it’s the best way, for she manages to do 
a good deal at home. I think Nina’s areal help 
to her mother — a thing that Nellie Merritt isn’t 
to hers. Nina did a very large washing and iron- 
ing last week, I know, for Della told me. She 
lives near Nina, and saw her hanging out the 
clothes. I guess that was the reason why Nina 
missed in geometry so often last week. She 
hadn’t had time to study. It would have driven 
me wild to have lost all those credits ; but Nina 
didn’t seem to care, not even when Nellie Mer- 
ritt, in the dress that her mother had ironed for 
her the night before, went up and recited the 
geometry lesson perfectly. Well, Nina doesn’t 
expect to be Number One or Two. She’s con- 
tented not to be down at the foot. May be 

that’s the better way. She told me once that I 
8 


1 14 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

cared more for “credits ” than 1 did for knowl- 
edge. Well, I do care for “ credits.” 

August 22. — To-day I turned over this journal 
till I found that place where I wrote such things 
of Clara Wilson. I read them through, and then 
I said to myself, what grandma used to say to 
me when I was little and was naughty: “ Nellie, 
isn’t it almost time you were sorry for that ? ” 

I am sorry. I do not believe what I wrote 
then about Clara teaching the infant-class in or- 
der that she might have a chance to “ show off.” 

Sunday I acted as secretary for the school, 
and I had to go into Clara’s room to get her class- 
book. She was standing by the blackboard 
talking, and I took the book and went into a 
corner to fix my report. Mrs. Lacy was not 
there, for she was sick, but all those infant-class 
scholars were looking at Clara and listening to 
her. I did not listen to her at first, but after a 
while her words made me want to hear, too. 

“ They whipped Him,” she was saying, and 
her hand pointed to a scourge she had drawn on 
the board, “ and they made a crown of thorns 
and put it on him.” 

A little fellow. Widow Bennett’s boy, held up 
his hand. 


HADASSAH AND I. 


“ What is it ? ” asked Clara, stopping. 

“And they slapped Jesus, too, right with their 
hands,” said the little fellow, eagerly. “ My 
mamma told me.” 

“ Did she ? ” said Clara, smiling at the eager 
child. “ Why, I think you must have the same 
kind of a mamma that I have. She told me this 
same story when I was little like you. And what 
did your mamma say Jesus suffered all that for? ” 

“ ’Cause he loved us,” piped out the little fel- 
low ; “ and he wants us to love him back. And 
I’m going to.” 

And Clara almost cried. She did, really. I 
don’t think she pretended at all. She went on 
through that story of the crucifixion, and the 
little folks watched the pictures on the black- 
board, and the story was all real to them. I saw 
that it was. 

It became real to me, after awhile, and I 
forgot to criticise the contrast of colors that Clara 
had made on that board. She had put a red 
soldier next a blue one, and I noticed it the min- 
ute I came in. But the colors didn’t matter. 
She made the story real. That wasn’t the kind 
of teaching I used to do. I don’t wonder that 
Mr. Gardner praises Clara. I believe that lesson 
was better than his sermons. 


Ii6 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Over in the other corner sat a woman. I know 
her by sight. She isn’t a church member, or a 
Christian, either, I think, but her little girl goes 
to the infant-class, and the mother was waiting 
for her. And I saw that woman put her hand- 
kerchief up to her eyes. At first she did it as 
if she didn’t want to be seen, but afterward she 
did it again and again, till, by the time Clara 
finished, that woman sat with her face hidden, 
and I could see her trembling. 

I went out of the room to give in my report. 
I did not intend to come back, but after Sunday- 
school I found that I had left my library-card in 
the infant-class room. I ran back to get the 
card, and there sat Clara and the woman. The 
scholars were all gone, and I only snatched up 
my card and ran out. But I knew what Clara 
was doing. The woman was crying still, and 
Clara was reading her a verse from the Bible : 
“ For God so loved the world.” 

No, I don’t think any more that Clara teaches 
just to show off. 

Clara asked Mr. Gardner to go and see the 
woman. She lives away out at the factory. Her 
husband is one of the hands there. 

Clara must spend a good deal of time over her 
scholars, I think. She was going home from the 


HADASSAH AND I. 


grocery yesterday, and I caught up with her, 
and she began to tell me something about the 
homes of some of the members of the infant-class. 

“You don’t know what dreadful places some 
of those babies live in ! ” she said. 

I didn't know. I ought to have known ; but 
I don’t think Clara meant that. Still, I remem- 
ber to my shame that I never used to know 
where half my scholars lived. I never visited 
them. But she has hunted up a good many 
that I am sure live in poorer homes than any of 
mine did. 

“ How can we expect them to be good in such 
homes?” she went on. “And so many of the 
families are poor, even if they are decent. The 
other day I met a little girl on the street who 
smiled as if she knew me. I presume she did. 

“ ‘ I’m going over to the kindergarten,’ said the 
child. 

“ ‘ Do you go to school there? ’ I asked. 

“ ‘ O, no,’ answered the little girl ; ‘ but my 
sister does, and I’m going over there to get the 
hat.’ 

“ ‘ How came your hat over there, you do not 
go the kindergarten?' I asked. 

“ ‘ Well, you see,’ said the child, becoming very 
confidential, ‘ me and my sister haven’t got but 


ii8 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

one hat between us, and one day she wears it, 
and the next I do ; and to-day sister wore it, 
but mother wants me to go on an errand, and so 
I’ve come over for the hat.’ ” 

And then Clara told me of a family she had 
found. The two little girls come to Clara’s 
infant-class, but they are always poorly dressed, 
wearing thin clothing and broken shoes whenever 
Clara does not help them to better things. The 
mother is a drunkard. She is hardly out of jail 
a day at a time, Clara says, for if she is let out 
Monday she drinks and is back in jail by Tues- 
day night. And the father is a rough man. 

Clara and Mrs. Lacy met the “ worst boy ” of 
the class the other day on the street, and pro- 
posed to him that they should make a call on his 
family. He was to guide them to the place, for 
neither Clara nor Mrs. Lacy knew where the 
family live. 

So he marched along with them for a few min- 
utes, but they looked the other way at some- 
thing, and during that second he fled. When 
they looked around he was gone, and if it had 
not been for his little brother who was “ tag- 
ging ” him, they could not have made that call. 

But the little brother’s short legs could not 
run so fast as the older ones, and, besides, the 


HADASSAII AND I. 


119 

little fellow wore a checked apron, and Clara 
kept her eye on that as the boy ran. 

She and Mrs. Lacy hurried after, panting, and 
a little provoked. 

“ I will make that call now,” said Mrs. Lacy, 
between her gasps for breath. 

Suddenly, at a corner of the street, the checked 
apron disappeared, and nothing could be seen 
of it for a minute, when Mrs. Lacy spied the 
two little fellows peeping out at them from a 
hiding-place, anxious to see if they were going 
to turn off at the right corner. 

On seeing the ladies both boys started again, 
and ran on to an engine-house, where Clara and 
Mrs. Lacy found them in a few minutes. 

“ Is this where you live ? ” asked Mrs. Lacy, 
making no mention of the chase she had endured. 

‘‘No,” blurted out the “ worst boy ; ” “it’s 
where my dogs live.” 

“Where are your dogs?” asked Mrs. Lacy, 
thinking she would make friends with the prom- 
ising youth by showing an interest in his pets. 

“ In there,” said the older boy, pointing into 
the depths of the engine-house. 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Lacy, “ Ld like to see them, 
and I do not want to go in there. Wont you 
go and get the dogs? ” 


120 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Obliging scholar: “ No, I wont/’ 

Clara said that she and Mrs. Lacy stood still 
after that answer. They didn’t know what to 
say. 

Then Clara drew a long breath and started 
afresh. 

“Well, where do you live ? ” she asked. 

“ Across the street,” was the answer. 

“ Which of the gates shall we open ? ” asked 
Mrs. Lacy, preparing to go over to the houses 
opposite. 

No answer. 

“Well, then,” said Clara, with persevering 
firmness, “ you watch and see that we go in at 
the right one.” 

So over the two would-be visitors went. 

When they were half-way across the street the 
older boy called out : “ Go in at the big white 
one.” 

Accordingly, pleased at having any directions 
given them, the ladies went to the gate men- 
tioned, tried it, and, behold, it was locked ! 

They looked back. Both of the boys were 
laughing at the success of their joke. 

Clara said that she laughed too, for she was so 
tired with the race that the boys had given them 
that she could not help it. 


HADASSAff AND /. 


I2I 


But just then the father of the two amiable 
youths appeared from somewhere in the depths 
of the engine-house, and came running across 
the street, and, opening a gate, called his wife 
to see the visitors. 

The account that the mother gave of her son 
could not have been very consoling to Clara and 
Mrs. Lacy, I should think. The mother said 
that she cannot manage that boy, although he is 
so young. He will go with the worst boys of 
the streets, and though she knows his reputa- 
tion in school, yet she can do nothing with him. 

Clara said she said to Mrs. Lacy, as they left 
the house together : “ I feel perfectly discour- 
aged. I don’t believe that we can do any thing 
with him, either.” 

“ No, I don’t believe we can,” answered Mrs. 
Lacy. 

Clara was surprised, for Mrs. Lacy hardly ever 
becomes so discouraged as to make a remark like 
that. 

But Mrs. Lacy repeated her words. 

“ I don’t believe we can,” she said, “ but I am 
sure that God can. We do not work without 
him.” 

Clara and I walked on a little farther, and then 
she made more revelations. 


122 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“ It is just as a policeman down there said to 
Mrs. Lacy,” said Clara. He was on the street, 
and I guess he had seen Mrs. Lacy down there 
before, for he bowed, and then she asked him 
about some people, and he told her, and then 
he said : ‘I’m glad you folks are doing some- 
thing for these poor people, ma’am. They need 
it ; but I tell you what it is, you don’t begin 
deep enough down. People have got to shut 
up these saloons down here before they can do 
much good with their sewing-schools and Sab- 
bath-schools and kindergartens.’ 

“ Well, Mrs. Lacy told him that she wished 
she could shut up all the saloons, but as she 
couldn’t she was going to do her best for the 
people, anyway. But it is dreadful, Nellie. The 
kindergarten teacher herself told me that some 
of her brightest children, after school hours, go 
directly to the saloons where their fathers are 
selling liquor. 

“ The kindergarten teacher has a dreadful time. 
Children who are not taught to obey at home 
will not obey at school, you know. Two or three 
of the older boys — though they’re pretty young, 
for of course large boys wouldn’t go to a kinder- 
garten — try, sometimes, to make the younger 
ones do mischief, and it isn’t allowable to whip 


HADASSAH AND I. 


123 


in the kindergarten, so the teacher, Miss Stokes, 
has to invent punishments suited to occasions. 

“ I was in the kindergarten one day visiting 
when she had to lift an obstinate boy bodily 
into the back yard, and bolt the door after him. 
And then there came such a series of knocks 
and poundings on that door ! The noise was 
terrific. 

“ Well, I sat there wondering how I could 
help, and at last I screwed up my courage and 
asked permission, and went out into that back 
yard. And there the poor wicked little fellow 
sat howling. I spoke to him, but he kept up 
his performance, and paid no attention to any 
thing I said. 

“At last I bethought myself of Mrs. Lacy’s 
expedient, and I said : * See here, haven’t you 
any dogs ? ’ 

“ He stopped crying at once, and answered 
very shortly ; ‘ Yes.’ 

“ ‘ How many have you ? ’ I asked, for I was 
encouraged by even a word of reply. 

“ ‘ Two,’ he snapped. 

“ ‘ Where are they ? ’ said I. 

“ ‘ Home,’ he growled, and then our interest- 
ing conversation was cut short by his rushing to 
the fence and trying to climb it. 


124 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“ I talked to him though, and he couldn’t 
climb over the fence, so at last he quieted down, 
and I led him into the school-room in triumph. 

“ But of course he stayed good only a little 
while. I went into the school-room again in 
the afternoon, and asked for the boy. 

“ Miss Stokes pointed to a nail, and said : 
‘ There are his shoes hanging up.’ 

“ ‘ Is that all there is left of him ?’ I asked. 

“‘No,’ she said; ‘he made such a noise 
scraping his shoes on the floor that I had to 
take them off, but he is around on the other side 
of the screen.’ 

“ I peeped behind the partition, and there he 
was, studying away as if he were going to be a 
model boy henceforward. 

“ Miss Stokes does a great deal of visiting 
among those people. She finds so many who 
need help. She comes over from the city every 
day, and she said to me : ‘ I don’t know what 
business the people on the ferry-boats can think 
I am engaged in, for I bring over queer bundles 
every day. Sometimes it is old clothes to be 
made over for the children ; sometimes plants 
for the school-room. To-morrow it will be jelly 
for a poor consumptive, the father of two of the 
children in my school.’ 


f/ADASSAH AND I. 


125 


“ Some of the children cannot speak a word 
of English when they first come to the kinder- 
garten, but they pick the language up readily, 
and Miss Stokes says that they often turn out 
to be the brightest scholars of all. And some- 
times she makes as many as sixty calls in one 
month, in order to find out about the children 
and understand their needs so that she may help 
them better.” 

Clara’s face was glowing with her talk and 
her enthusiasm over that mission work. I do 
really believe that she wishes she could do such 
work as Miss Stokes does. I guess that Clara 
is one of the kind who “ go out into the high- 
ways and hedges ” to urge people in. 

She says that she has begun to work in a sort 
of sewing-school in the foreign part of this city, 
and she goes there every Saturday. She says 
there are Spanish, German, French, Irish, Ital- 
ian, and Portuguese children in the school 

She has a class. The children sew “ over-’n’- 
over ” patchwork for four weeks after they first 
come into the school. After the four Saturdays 
of patchwork the children who sew well enough 
may choose whatever garments they want, and 
a ticket having on it a Bible verse is given to 
each child. That verse must be learned and 


126 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? ' 

recited the next Saturday before receiving the 
garment. 

“ One five-year-old worked all last Saturday 
afternoon, hemming with wonderful stitches a 
square of cotton cloth,” said Clara ; and when 
it was done she said to me : ‘ I’m going to take 
this hang’chif home and give it to my papa to- 
night. He’ll be awful glad ! ’” 

“ Isn’t it dreadful work teaching them ? ” I 
asked. 

“ Sometimes,” said Clara, laughing. “ Such 
confusion as I have to endure sometimes ! They 
all talk together, and I can’t keep them still. It 
sounds like this : ‘ Say, teacher, that girl’s mak- 
ing faces at me.’ ‘ Say, teacher, that girl behind 
keeps punching into me.’ ‘ Say, teacher, make 
that girl keep the window-curtain down, the sun 
shines into my eyes, and I can’t sew.’ ^Say, 
teacher, baste mine first.’ And half a dozen 
more cry : ‘ Thread my needle.’ 

“And just in the midst of it all,” went on 
Clara, “ some little girl who has been standing 
up in her chair trying to oversee the sewing of 
all of the rest of the school and do her own at 
the same time tips over her chair, and down 
she goes and gets a hard bump on* her head. 
Of course, she cries ‘ out loud,’ and I have to 


HADASSAH AND /. 


127 


take her out and comfort her as hastily as pos- 
sible, for who knows what mischief the rest of 
my class may be in before I come back? 

“ And once, O, once, Nellie, a goat walked 
- into school ! I think some mischievous boy out- 
side sent the creature in. And the goat just 
marched up the aisle, never minding the con- 
fusion that his appearance made on either side, 
till my seat was reached, away up in front. I 
didn’t know what else to do — all my class were 
squealing — so I caught that goat by the horns 
and tried to turn him around and head him 
toward the front door. 

“ But, no ; he wouldn’t budge. He planted 
his four feet firmly, and absolutely refused to go 
back the way he came. So I induced him to go 
forward. No doubt he thought I was going to 
let him explore the interior of the building, but 
I guided him to the back door and poked him 
out, and he danced down the steps on his hind 
feet, looking as though he knew that he had 
broken up the quiet of the school for some time, 
anyway.” 

“Don’t you get discouraged?” I asked, as 
Clara stopped for breath. 

“ Well, yes, some days,” said Clara. “ But 
they are so ignorant that I want to help them. 


128 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

They look at me every time, and once in awhile 
one of them says : ‘ Is that your best dress ? ’ 

“ And, O, the smell of onions from my class 
is positively awful sometimes ! I think some 
days that the mothers of those children must 
have conspired to give them dinners of onions 
before sending them to school. I told Mrs. 
Lacy that the onions troubled me a good deal, 
and she answered that Darwin somewhere says 
something about ‘ those whose stomachs soar 
above all prejudices,’ and she advised me to aim 
at being one of such people. 

There is a boys’ class in the school, and 
they learn to make their own shirts, and some 
of the boys’ sewing is as good as the girl’s. And 
sometimes some little fellow who does not be- 
long to the school peeps in at the door and 
asks if we will let him come in and sew on some 
button, or mend some tear in his coat that has 
not been cared for by his mother, who, perhaps, 
is some overworked woman in some untidy 
place not far away. 

“ But it is so sad to listen to the talk of the 
children. One little girl. May, who is so small 
that she ought not to have heard of the wicked- 
ness of the world, gave me a vivid account of 
the way her father came home once when he 


HADASSAH AND I. 


129 


was drunk and killed her mother. ‘ She was 
lying on the bed sick, and papa took up a big 
knife, and stuck it right into her heart, and 
killed her,’ the little girl said. 

“ The child was a baby then, and knew noth- 
ing about it, of course ; but the grandmother had 
told little May all the particulars, and the child 
told the story as if it were one with which she 
was so familiar that she had no feeling about it. 

“ One of the girls last Saturday, after the 
usual talk on the Bible lesson, said to me : ‘ What 
is a Bible, anyway? Is it like a prayer-book?’” 

Clara was at her own gate by this time, and I 
left her there. But I thought as I came home 
that she is doing a great deal more good in the 
world than I am. 

September 14. — I do think that we have one of 
the silliest girls in our room that I ever saw. 
She almost always misses in her lessons, but that 
isn’t what I mean. I’m not going to write her 
name down here, but I think she is so silly that 
I just fairly despise her ways. She keeps a copy 
of Tennyson in her desk, and she is always look- 
ing over at Ed Lowell. He studies like a good 
fellow, and doesn’t mind her, but I should think 

Estelle would have more sense. 

0 


130 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

There ! I didn’t mean to write her name, even 
if this is only my journal. But it’s too silly to 
see that girl go on. She’ll sit and gaze at that 
boy by the hour, and try to flirt with him at 
recess. And the other day he snubbed her— not 
a rude snub, but a gentlemanly one — and she 
cried. 

I never saw such silliness. Ed is good in his 
studies, and I don’t believe that he would think 
any thing of any girl who wasn’t good in hers. 
Besides, as I heard Miss Towne say once to 
some of the senior class : “ It is a great pity for 
any school-girl to throw away her only chance of 
education by spending her time thinking of 
young gentlemen instead of lessons. There will 
be time enough for the former when school-days 
are over.’* 

Ma says that she is glad that Miss Towne is 
so sensible. 

September 15. — Professor Hazelton has charge 
of our class on Friday afternoons. Miss Towne 
used to have us Fridays when we were juniors. 
She used to let us have a pretty easy time. 
Sometimes, then, she would read to us or tell us 
something interesting. But Professor Hazelton 
wants us to do the intere.sting part, now we are 


HADASSAH AND /. 


131 

middlers. He gets up something new for each 
Friday, and it seems to me that it is usually 
something pretty hard. 

We had to have a debate the other Friday 
afternoon. Professor Hazelton said we must, 
and he gave us the subject. It was : “ Resolved, 
That the execution of Charles I. was unjust.” 

I was put on the affirmative side. I was glad 
of that, for I should not have known what to 
say if I had been on the negative. I hardly 
knew what to say as it was. Was it right to 
kill a king like Charles ? I am sure I do not 
know. I don’t know any better now than I 
did before I heard the matter argued about so 
much. 

But I had to read a number of histories — that 
is, parts of a number — to find something to say. 
Ma helped me a good deal. She read for me 
and thought out arguments. I don’t believe I 
could have got along at all if it hadn’t been for 
her, and I don’t see how in the world she ever 
got time to help me, either, with all the house- 
work and every thing she has to do. 

But at last, after much mental anguish, my 
argument was ready, and I was prepared to plead 
for poor old King Charles. I’m glad I’m not a 
distinguished person, so I sha’n’t be such a bother 


132 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

to any school-girl hundreds of years after I’m 
dead. 

I suppose, may be, it was a good thing for me 
to have to work so over my speech. I know I 
shall never forget completely about King Charles 
I. again. But still it was quite a tax to have to 
do so much extra work, hunting through 
histories, on top of all the rest of my studies. 

And I had to stand up beside a sort of little 
pulpit that the boys fixed, and read my argu- 
ment. I didn’t like it much. 

Then, another Friday, Professor Hazelton said 
we must have a class paper. So we all had to 
write articles for that. Ma helped me fix up a 
lot of conundrums for it, and, besides, I wrote a 
short article on '‘Bread,” that being the only 
eatable I know how to cook. 

And another Friday we had to have recita- 
tions, and I learned a good part of “ Thanatopsis ” 
and recited it. 

Professor Hazelton criticised us that day in a 
series of notes that he took when we were speak- 
ing. He didn’t mention names, but he said that 
the selection from “ Thanatopsis ” was “ a fine 
thought,” but it would have been better if the 
poem had been delivered “ in a more subdued 


manner. 


IfADASSAH AND /. 


133 


Well, I felt “ subdued” enough inside while I 
was reciting, I am sure, but it does make me 
quake to have to get up and recite in the face 
and eyes of so many folks. I just hate Fridays, 
anyway. I don’t see why Professor Hazelton 
has to make them so horrid. Honestly, I dread 
every Friday as much as if I were going to have 
a hard, thumping toothache on such days. I’d 
prefer having the toothache sometimes, I think, 
to enduring Professor Hazelton’s inventions. 

And what do you suppose Professor Hazelton 
wants me to do next time ? Complain about 
something. He said that we sometimes get into 
ruts and go along and never notice things that 
might be improved if some one would call our 
attention to them by complaining. So I am to 
be complainer ” for the class next time ! I have 
not the slightest idea what I shall say. 

If I should say what I think I should remark : 
“ Professor Hazelton, I wish to complain oi you. 
I complain very bitterly of the long written 
examinations that you give us. I handed you 
in to-day a twelve-page foolscap paper written in 
answer to the questions you wrote on the board 
this morning. I think that examinations that 
are so long are only tests of endurance in writ- 
ing, not of amount of knowledge.” 


134 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

But such a speech as that would never do. I 
don’t think that Professor Hazelton would like it 
very well to have me “complainer” of him. 

Nina says she wishes that I would complain of 
the manner in which Will Dennett has decorat- 
ed great Caesar’s picture. Professor Hazelton 
would be shocked if he could see it. The noble 
general who formerly stood at the beginning of 
vVill’s book is now loose, and Will decorated his 
(the general’s) hair with blue arrows, and the 
margin of the picture with red tomahawks, till 
Caesar looked like the chief of a tribe of Indians 
on the war-path. Then Will passed the picture 
around in the Latin class. I guess that the 
“ portrait ” made some of the scholars miss 
when it came turn to recite. Nina declares that 
that picture has destroyed all the ideal Caesar 
that she had in her mind, and she demands that 
vengeance be taken on Will by my revealing his 
artistic work in my “ complaint ” to Professor 
Hazelton. 

But such suggestions have not helped me very 
much. I asked Inez what I should complain 
about, and she thought awhile, and then she 
said : “ Why couldn’t you complain of the amount 
of slang that the scholars use ? Professor Hazel- 
ton would like such a complaint as that, I am 


HADASSAH AND I. 


135 


sure. I know he is shocked at some of the ex- 
pressions he hears sometimes from this class.” 

I laughed. 

“ It doesn’t take very much to shock him, 
anyway,” I said. “ He is so prim. I wonder if 
he was ever a real boy.” 

“ O, I guess so,” said Inez, smiling; “but I 
don’t blame any one for objecting to slang. I’ve 
been expecting he would give this class a lecture 
some Friday on that very thing.” 

“ You wont have to appropriate much of the 
lecture if he does,” I said. 

And then I remembered what Hattie Brown 
did, and I told Inez about it. It was this. The 
other day Hattie and I were the ones expected 
to put the figures for geometry on the black- 
board. Miss Towne always comes in to hear 
our geometry just after the noon recess, and she 
always, the day before, appoints two girls or boys 
to prepare the figures for the lesson of the day, 
and for past lessons as far back as they think she 
will review us. Sometimes, when the ones who 
are to draw the figures don’t know a certain 
proposition very well, they will purposely omit 
drawing the figure that belongs to that proposi- 
tion, in hopes that Miss Towne wont remember 
when there is no figure to remind her. Estelle 


136 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

was the one who invented that brilliant plan. 
But it doesn’t work very well now. It did at 
first. But I think Miss Towne sees through 
that plan. Anyway, the other day, when the 
figure for an extra hard proposition had been left 
off the board. Miss Towne suddenly pounced 
down on the boy who was drawer for the day 
and said to him: “You may go to the board, 
draw the figure for that proposition, and demon- 
strate it.” 

And when the boy had forgotten how the 
figure for the proposition looked, and tried to 
peep into his geometry to see. Miss Towne saw 
him, and I am afraid that he did not get many 
credits for that lesson. What a lot of things 
must happen to vex Miss Towne ! I wonder 
that she doesn’t hate the whole of us some- 
times. 

But I was going to write down what I re- 
membered to tell Inez. It was Hattie’s and my 
turn to draw the figures, as I said. And so we 
rushed to the board when recess was almost 
over. We had both been studying, and had 
both forgotten the job of drawing till it was 
almost too late. 

Hattie flew for rubbers and rulers and chalk 
and a string, while I stood by the board, saying 


HADASSAH AND L 


37 


over to myself for the last time in a whisper that 
beautiful twenty-third proposition : 

“ In a right-angled triangle, if a perpendicular 
is drawn from the vertex of the right-angle to the 
hypothenuse, 

1. The triangles on each side of the per- 
pendicular are similar to the given triangle, and 
to each other. 

2. Either side about the right-angle is a mean 
proportional between the hypothenuse and the 
adjacent segment. 

3. The perpendicular is a mean — ” 

“Nellie Merritt,” exclaimed Hattie, rushing 
back out of breath with her arms full, “ if you 
don’t stop standing there and moving your lips 
like an idiot we shall never get things done.” 

And Hattie began to rub the blackboard clean, 
while I finished to myself my cut-off sentence — 
“ proportional between the segments of the 
hypothenuse.” 

“ Why,” said Hattie, energetically, as the 
chalk-dust flew and she slammed down the rub- 
ber and took up her chalk, “ Miss Towne would 
give us fits if we didn’t have the figures ready.” 

“Yes,” said I, absently, as I turned over the 
pages of my geometry, looking up the figures I 
was to draw. 


138 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Professor Hazelton was sitting at his desk. 
We had neither of us noticed him, but now he 
turned around with a gravely inquisitive air. 

“ What kind of fits does Miss Towne give 
you ? ” he asked. 

And poor Hattie stared at him for a second 
before she comprehended that she had been 
talking slang. And then she blushed and 
laughed, and didn’t exactly know how to apolo- 
gize for herself. 

“ O,” she said, “ I only meant that Miss 
Towne would not like it at all if the figures 
were not ready in time for the lesson.” 

“Ah! ” said Professor Hazelton, politely ; and 
he went off with a half sort of smile on his 
face. 

But Hattie was so wrathful that she shook 
her fist at his back almost before he was out of 
sight. 

Yes, I am very certain that Professor Hazel- 
ton would like to have me “ complain ” of slang 
when the Friday comes around, but the trouble, 
as I told Inez, is that, after saying any thing 
against it, I should have to be very careful my- 
self and not use any, unless I wanted to hear 
some remarks from the scholars. Besides, I am 
afraid that if I said any thing Professor Hazel- 


HAD ASS AH AND /. 


139 


ton would remark : “lam glad that Nellie has 
brought up this subject. It is one that I have 
thought of for some time, and I have intended 
to speak about it to the class.” And then go on 
and give a regular lecture. It would make all 
the scholars angry with me. 

Ma thinks that all slang expressions are dread- 
ful, and I do try to keep from saying them, be- 
cause I do not like them myself. But I hear 
them so much that sometimes they hop out of 
my mouth before I think. 

Why, it was only the other day that I jumped 
and whispered “Heavens!” to myself, when 
my books tumbled on the floor during school- 
hours. 

And then, as a result of the good training that 
I’ve had all my life, came rushing into my mind 
that verse : “ Swear not at all ; neither by heav- 
en ; for it is God’s throne.” 

And that other verse : “ And he that shall 
swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, 
and by him that sitteth thereon.” 

And when I thought of these words of Christ 
I felt condemned, even if I had spoken the word 
in a whisper only. 

But I seem possessed to want to use some 
such expression. Estelle says “ Holy Moses ! ” 


140 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

and “Gracious goodness!” and “Good gra- 
cious!” And Will Dennett is always saying 
“ Je-hosh-a-phat ! ” and “Botheration!” and 
“Thunder!” and “Confound it!” And, of 
course, there are so many other expressions that 
the scholars use that I don’t think a bit right for 
a church member and a Christian to use. At 
least, I know that Christ would not use them if 
he were talking. 

I like Inez for one thing. She does not use a 
word of slang, or any expression verging on it. 

But if my grandma could sit down at one of 
these desks during noon recess, and listen to the 
conversation that usually goes on here, I should 
not be much surprised to see her rise and preach 
a sermon from the text : “ Let your communica- 
tion be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is 
more than these cometh of evil.” 

I guess that sometimes the source of evil from 
which an expression comes is so far back that we 
do not know of it. Why, grandma says that she 
has read that even the expression, “ Dear me ! ” 
is supposed to be a corruption of some old words 
(Italian, I guess they are) meaning, “ My God! ” 

When I hear grandma talking about such ex- 
pressions sometimes I feel as if I should never 
dare to speak again for fear I should say some- 


HADASSAH AND /. 


141 

thing I ought not to. I do not wonder that 
James wrote : “ Who is a wise man and endued 
with knowledge among you ? Let him show 
out of a good conversation his works with meek- 
ness of wisdom.” 

Neither do I wonder that King David prayed 
this prayer : “ Set a watch, O Lord, before my 
mouth ; keep the door of my lips.” 

Perhaps it is because I try to “ keep the door 
of my lips ” myself that I do not succeed better. 

September 30. — We have had a vacation this 
week, and the other day I did a curious thing. 
It was the Jewish Day of Atonement, and I 
thought that I would like to go into the syna- 
gogue and see what kind of services Hadassah 
attends. I don’t think she goes to the syna- 
gogue very often, but last week she was absent 
from school two days, and when she came back 
we were sitting alone at noon, and I asked her if 
she had been sick. 

“ No,” said Hadassah ; “ it is our New Year, 
you know.” 

“ Is it ?” I asked. 

“Yes,” said she; “it is the beginning of the 
month Tizri. I suppose you know about that ? 
You have read in Leviticus, haven’t you, about 


142 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

the ‘ feast of trumpets ? ’ I suppose you read 
that part of the Bible, don’t you ? ” 

“ Why, of course, sometimes,” I answered. 

“ But I read it in the Hebrew,” said Hadas- 
sah, a little proudly. 

I was rather appalled. To read Hebrew! I 
am afraid that Hadassah is smarter than I am. 

“ What do you do on Jewish New Year?” I 
asked. 

“ Have services in the synagogue,” answered 
Hadassah. “ Haven’t you ever been there ? ” 

I shook my head. 

O, then I suppose that things would all seem 
very strange to you,” said Hadassah. “We call 
the first day Rosh Hashdna, or ‘ Day of Re- 
membrance,’ because the old rabbis used to say 
that on that day every year God judged all men, 
and they passed before him as a flock of sheep 
pass before a shepherd. And every thing is 
very sad that day and the next. You do not 
know Hebrew, so all that you would hear in the 
synagogue would sound to you like wailing, and 
you might see women crying. The thing that 
generally pleases visitors most is the blowing of 
the sh5phar.” 

“ What is that? ” I asked, as I picked up my 
napkin. 


HA DA SS A II AND I. 


143 


“The ram’s-horn/’ answered Hadassah, shak- 
ing the crumbs out of her lap. “ It makes us 
remember the time when the trumpet used to 
be blown to call the children of Israel together. 
Now a man stands on one side of the reading- 
desk, with his back to us, of course, and he 
spreads out his tallith, or blue-bordered kind of 
white shawl that Jewish men wear, and covers 
his head with it. Then he blows the shophar 
several times,” in answer to what the rabbi says. 

“ How does it sound ? ” I asked. 

“ Like a horn,” said Hadassah. “ Like one 
of those little horns that you hear around the 
streets Christmas-time. I remember reading once 
that during the time when the Jews were un- 
der the power of the Romans, a governor who 
was ignorant of Hebrew customs was made sus- 
picious by hearing the sound of the trumpet at 
the beginning of Tizri. He thought that it was 
the signal for a general revolt of the Jews. But 
he was quieted by an arrangement of Simon, the 
son of Gamaliel, who ordered that the trumpet 
should not sound at the beginning, but about 
the middle of the prayers, so as to show that it 
was only a part of the service. I’ve no doubt 
that the governor felt quite relieved after that.” 

I looked at Hadassah as she placidly divided 


144 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

an apple. I was wondering how she would have 
felt if she had lived back in those ages she talked 
about, or in those days I have read of under 
Henry III. of England, when Jews were even 
forbidden to give Christian names to their chil- 
dren. And then I wondered what she would 
have done if she had lived in Judea in the days 
of Christ. Would she have believed in him ? 
It seemed to me that perhaps Martha or Mary, 
or some one of those women who were early at 
the sepulcher, might have looked not so very 
differently from Hadassah. 

She glanced up when I had thought as far as 
this. 

“I’ll tell you what, Nellie,” said she, as we 
both rose to put away our lunch-baskets, “ it is 
vacation next week. Supposing you should go 
with me to the synagogue once? Go next 
Wednesday. That is Yom Kippur, the ‘ Day of 
Atonement.’ When you come into the syna- 
gogue look at the right hand and you’ll see me ; 
then come and sit with me.” 

And I went home in a perfect twitter of ex- 
citement that night. The Day of Atonement ! 
Why, it seemed just like living in old Bible 
times ! 

“ Will they offer sacrifices ? ” I said to myself. 


HADASSAH AND I. 


145 


And I got my Bible, Sunday, and read all that 
it says about the Day of Atonement among the 
Israelites. About Aaron, where it says : “ Once 
in the year shall he make atonement.” And 
further on in Numbers, where it tells about the 
sacrifice of lambs “ as a burnt-offering unto the 
Lord.” 

“ Do you suppose they will offer sacrifices 
Wednesday?” I asked mother. 

“ Why, no,” she said. 

“ They ought to, if they’re going- to keep up 
the real thing,” I said, looking back at my Bible 
with a feeling of disappointment. 

“ It isn’t the real thing,” said mother, and 
grandmother repeated that verse out of Ro- 
mans, “ ‘ We also joy in God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received 
the atonement.’ ” 

And they were right. There were no sacri- 
fices offered. 

Wednesday morning at eight o’clock I went 
up the flight of stairs that led to the audience- 
room of the synagogue. The services had already 
begun. I slipped in. The seats were pretty 
well filled, for Hadassah says that if a J ew neglects 
all the Sabbaths and other days of the year he 

dare not stay away from the synagogue on Yom 
10 


146 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Kippur. Her father does, though, because he 
says that he does not believe in any thing. But 
if a Jew has a bit of reverence left for his religion 
he goes on Yom Kippur. I suppose that is the 
reason why Hadassah goes then. 

Well, I was scared after I had stepped inside 
of the door, for the place seemed to be full of 
men, and they were all standing up with black 
stove-pipe hats on their heads, and wearing 
those white, dark-bordered shawls that Hadassah 
called talliths. The men were all chanting 
Hebrew. 

But at last, just as a fat old Jew turned around 
to see if I were never going to sit down, I re- 
membered to look at the right-hand side of the 
room, and there were some women, and I saw 
Hadassah beckoning to me. I was very glad to 
go and sit with her. 

After I became less uncomfortable and ex- 
cited I could look around and see what was 
about me. Up in front was a pulpit with a read- 
ing-desk in front of it. There were white cur- 
tains behind the pulpit, and I saw these drawn 
aside, and some doors shoved away, and two 
rolls of the Scriptures brought out. Hadassah 
told me that the place with doors is called the 
ark, and devout Jews are expected to bow toward 


HADASSAII AND /. 


147 


it on entering the synagogue and to say some- 
thing. But most Jews do not trouble themselves 
to do that. I watched, and I did not see any 
body who did it, except one old woman. 

Hadassah was reading Hebrew, and so were 
the others. In a few minutes Hadassah found a 
book that was printed partly in English and 
partly in Hebrew, and she handed it to me. 

I read over the service for the Day of Atone- 
ment, but I did not see any sacrifices being made. 
Hadassah said that the most strict Jews had not 
eaten any thing since the night before. 

“ Have you ? ” I asked. 

Yes,” she said ; “ where is the use of being so 
particular? But I don’t believe that the rabbi 
has, and see how pale that woman looks.” 

When it was about noon, and I had become 
very tired, one of the men in white at the read- 
ing-desk said that the “ Service for the Dead ” 
would begin. I didn’t know at all what he meant, 
but I found out pretty soon. 

They shut the doors so that folks would not 
keep passing in and out and disturbing the con- 
gregation, but people kept doing it, anyway, and 
so it made confusion fastening and unfastening 
the doors. 

And then the rabbi — he was one of the men 


148 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

in white, Hadassah told me — went to the front 
of the pulpit, and faced us, and lifted up his eyes, 
and in English prayed to the dead that they 
would be present and see that they were remem- 
bered by the congregation. 

I never heard such a prayer as that before, and 
I was utterly shocked. But I looked at Ha- 
dassah, and she was crying. A good many of the 
people cried in the service that followed. 

And the rabbi said prayers then for the dead ! 
I was astonished, for I never knew before that 
the Jews believed in foolish things like that. 
The rabbi read a good many prayers in English, 
or else said them out of his head, I couldn’t tell 
which. Slips of paper were handed him. I sup- 
pose they contained the names of those he was 
to pray for. I don’t know. Anyway, he said a 
prayer over each one. The form of the prayer 
was much the same, so I can partly remember it. 
One was like this. It was a prayer that a young 
widow wanted to have said for her husband : 

“ In this solemn hour, I remember thee, my 
beloved husband, and the love and kindness 
with which thou didst surround me while thou 
wast alive. After a short year of married life, 
thou didst leave me with a child to bring up in 
the honor and fear of God. O, may the all- 


HADASSAH AND I. 


149 


merciful Father look with favor upon the soul of 
, and receive it into bliss.” 

After this charity was promised. That 
seemed to be an indispensable part of the prayers. 
I don’t know whether the people thought that 
their prayers would be answered if they did not 
give charity or not. 

The people around me cried, and the men 
wiped their eyes, and the rabbi wailed out the 
prayers in a melancholy voice. On and on, 
prayer after prayer, he wailed so mournfully, and 
Hadassah cried, and at last I cried myself. I 
don’t know what I was crying about, but I just 
couldn’t seem to help it. Hadassah told me 
afterward that she was crying about her mother. 

I don’t believe I can ever feel the same toward 
Hadassah again. I mean about being jealous 
of her. Why, I wouldn’t change places with her 
for any thing. It must be dreadful to have such 
ideas of religion as Hadassah has. 

Twice, anyway, I saw the rabbi almost fall 
flat on the floor. One man near me went down 
on his knees in the aisle and bowed till his fore- 
head almost touched the floor. 

“ What do they do that for?” I whispered to 
Hadassah. 

“ In memory of the way the priests are said to 


150 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

have bowed in the temple in old times,” she 
answered. 

At last I became so tired that about two 
o’clock I asked Hadassah if folks would think it 
was dreadful if I went out. I didn’t think that 
they would, for they had been passing out and 
in all the time. 

“ No, of course they wont,” she said. “ I 
believe I’ll go, too. I’m so tired of this wooden 
bench.” And so we both went out. 

“ What is the rabbi doing now ? ” I asked, as we 
came out into the open air. It seemed like com- 
ing out from thousands of years ago, too, if 
you’ll believe it. I was quite startled for the 
minute to step into the street and see the busi- 
ness going on as usual. I don't know what else 
I expected, though. 

“ The rabbi ? ” said Hadassah. He is praying 
in Hebrew for those who have died by fire and 
water and sword.” 

We walked a block in silence. 

‘‘Do I look as if I had been crying?” she 
asked, suddenly. 

“ Not very much,” I answered. 

And then she told me about her mother. I 
didn’t know what made Hadassah tell me. She 
doesn’t generally talk of such things. 


HADASSAH AND I. 


She said that her mother died three years ago, 
and only her father and herself are left of her 
family. But her mother was not a Jewess. I 
don ’t think she was any thing, religiously, I mean. 
She was an American, but she married a Jew. 

“ I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what else 
to say. 

“ Are you ?” asked Hadassah, looking at me 
curiously. “ What for? ” 

“ Because you haven’t any mother,” I an- 
swered. “ I don’t know what I should do with- 
out mine.” 

Hadassah looked off at the hills. Her lips 
trembled. 

“And I’m sorry for you for another thing, 
too,” I said, in a minute. 

I hardly dared say it to Hadassah, but I 
wanted to. 

“What other thing?” asked she. 

“ Because — because you do not believe that 
our Saviour cares for you and is sorry for you,” 
I said. “ He truly does love you, Hadassah, 
and he is the ‘ atonement.’ He died for us.” 

It was the first time that I had ever said as 
much as that to any of my schoolmates, the 
first time I had asked any of them to come to 
Christ. I felt frightened after I had done it. 


»52 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

But Hadassah did not say any thing. Only 
when we came to the corner she said, “ Good- 
bye,” and I ran for my train, caught it, and 
came home. 

“ But I am going to tell Miss Towne about 
Hadassah. I mean about my visit to the syna- 
gogue. Miss Towne knows about Hadassah, of 
course. Miss Towne can help her if any body 
can. I don’t know what to say to such a per- 
son. 

I told the folks at home about Yom Kippur, 
all I could remember of it, and grandma wiped 
her eyes, and said, “ Poor things ! ” and then 
she made me get her the Bible and sit down 
and read her the eleventh chapter of Romans, 
the one that comes just before my twelfth. I 
never read the eleventh with much interest be- 
fore. In fact, I never have liked Romans very 
well, but may be I’ll learn to like it. Grandma 
says it’s one of the most interesting books in 
the Bible to her. Well, that chapter is all about 
the Jews, and how Paul felt over them, and how 
some day they shall turn to God again. I don’t 
wonder that Paul felt badly, if the Jews did 
such things in his time as they do now. 

But I could hardly go to sleep that night, 
and when I did it was to hear again the wailings 


HADAZSAH AND /. 


153 


of the synagogue, and see once more the red 
light of the “perpetual lamp” dimly glowing 
above the rabbi’s head. 

I have been so nervous ever since that I can 
hardly bear to hear a door squeak, and the 
sound of singing makes me want to cry. I 
didn’t know the wailing of a congregation could 
have such an effect on one’s nerves. 

Hadassah said that some of the Jews think 
that if they only go to the synagogue on the 
Day of Atonement, and fast all day, and pray, 
they will be saved, no matter how they act the 
rest of the year. She does not believe that, she 
says, but the rabbi says if Jews do enough good 
works, those will save their souls. And I asked 
her if she tried to save her soul that way, but 
she would not answer me ; she only laughed and 
said : “ Do you think I am good ? ” 

How can the Jews think such things, when 
the Bible says : “ There is none that doeth good, 
no, not one ! ” 

1 should think that they would know in their 
hearts that no one is good enough to go to 
heaven. 

October 5. — I did tell Miss Towne about it. 
But I think she knew before. I believe that 


154 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

woman knows about all the scholars in this 
school. Whether they are Christians or not, I 
mean. I don’t see how she finds out, and I 
never saw a public school teacher before who 
brought religion into every-day talk so much. 
She doesn’t offend any one by it, either, as far as 
I can see, and I don’t mean that she makes re- 
ligion offensively prominent, either. She just 
seems to say such things naturally, as if she 
were talking about every-day affairs. 

I said some such thing to her once, and she 
said : “ Don’t you think that religion ought to be 
an every-day thing, Nellie? Isn’t that what it 
is meant for? ” 

“ Well, I suppose so, but most folks don’t do 
it, anyway. 

Miss Towne says that Hadassah is going 
home with her Christmas, to stay for the two 
weeks’ vacation. 

I want to show her what a Christian Christ- 
mas is like,” Miss Towne said, smiling. “ Do 
not tell the other girls about it, Nellie, please. 
I don’t want them to say any thing that might 
prejudice Hadassah. But I tell you because I 
thought you would like to know. We could 
not invite her last year, although I had planned 
to do so. But we were all so sad then over my 


HA DA SS AH AND /. 


155 


brother’s death that I was afraid that Hadassah 
would have a bad impression of Christmas. 
Now, however, although we do not forget, yet 
I hope we can at least show her the pleasant- 
ness of Christmas.” 

I should think that Christmas must be very 
pleasant indeed in Miss Towne’s family. I 
shouldn’t object being invited there for Christ- 
mas myself, though of course we always have 
good times at home. I saw old Mr. and Mrs. 
Towne once. They came to visit this school. 
They are a very pleasant looking couple. 

January 29. — Number Two as usual. Ha- 
dassah is Number One, of course. 

February 28. — Hadassah and I stand in the 
same relation to each other as far as the report 
cards go. 

I think that Inez is one of the queerest girls I 
ever saw. I said to her yesterday, when we 
were walking arm in arm up and down the hall 
studying out loud : “ Isn’t your Greek very hard, 
Inez 1 I notice that you are the only one in 
the Greek class that seems to recite decently. 
I should think the teacher would be completely 
discouraged.” 

“It is hard,” said Inez. “I thought at first 


156 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

that I should never get those verbs, but I prayed 
about them, and since then I have found them 
easier to understand.” 

“You prayed about them?” I said, in sur- 
prise. “ Do you pray about your lessons ? ” 

“ Why, of course I do,” said Inez, looking 
surprised in her turn. “ Don’t you ? ” 

“ Why, no,” I said. “ I never thought of 
such a thing.” 

“ I don’t see why not,” answered Inez ; “ there 
is a verse in the Bible that I think means that. 
I suppose it means other things, too, but I al- 
ways take it that way because I think it applies 
to me so. It is that verse, you know, ‘ If any of 
you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giv- 
eth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not ; 
and it shall be given him.’ ” 

“ Well, I never thought of that meaning les- 
sons,” I said. “ I never thought, someway, that 
God cared much for those.” 

Inez walked a little way, and then she said : 
“ Well, may be my father has taught me differ- 
ently about such things from the way that most 
people are taught. I know that he always says 
that God is interested in the least thing that 
interests us. It doesn’t take away from his 
greatness at all to care for little things.” 


HADASSAH AND I. 157 

And then Inez told me what she did when she 
was a little girl about seven years old. One 
day she was very hungry for an apple. There 
were no apples in the house or on the trees in 
the yard, and Inez did not know how to get 
any. 

“ So I went out into the garden,” said Inez, 
“and said a little prayer by myself. I don’t re- 
member just what it was, but it was something 
like this : ‘ O God, I want an apple. Please, 
when my papa comes home to dinner, make him 
bring some apples, for Jesus’s sake. Amen.’ 

“ Father was up town on an errand, but he 
was coming home to dinner. There was a great 
wall, or levee, that ran all around our home. 
The levee was made of earth and boards, for it 
was meant to keep out the floods that used to 
come sometimes in the place where we lived. 
That levee shut out the view of the street a 
good deal, so that I did not see father coming to 
dinner till he was walking down the steps that 
led from the levee. But the minute I did see 
him I noticed that he had a paper bag in his left 
hand. I was certain I knew what was in it, and 
when it was opened, surely enough, there were- 
some apples. 

“ I told father afterward about that prayer of 


158 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

mine, and he said he had no doubt that God put 
it into his heart to go around by the fruit-shop 
and get some apples. And he told me that he 
hoped that I would always tell God about every 
thing I might want, even if he did not always 
answer by sending me the things I asked for, 
because sometimes the things might not be 
good for me, and then God would not send 
them. So, you see, I asked him to help me 
about the Greek.” 

“ What would you have done if your apple 
prayer had not been answered ? ” I asked. 

“ I don’t know,” said Inez. “ I think that 
God saw that was the first real prayer that I had 
ever made up by myself, and so he answered it, 
and that encouraged me to pray again. I think 
I should have been very much surprised if those 
apples had not come, though. I was sure they 
would.” 

Inez went on studying then, and I did too, 
but I kept wondering if hers isn’t the right way 
to study. I don’t know why I never thought 
of it before. 

March 4. — “You do not look as if you ex- 
pected to have a very good time,” said grand- 
ma to me, as she tied my sash. 


HADASSAII AND I. 


159 


It was just before our church social. That 
came on Friday night this time, so I could go to 
it without worrying about any lessons for next 
day. 

I was standing before the glass looking at 
myself when grandma said that. I had my new 
blue dress on, but I do not think myself I looked 
very cheerful. 

“ Well, I don’t expect to have a good time,” 
said I. “ There isn’t much of any body to talk 
to, and I just sit still and look stupid, and feel 
so, too. I don’t think people are very social.” 

“ That is the way a good many folks talk,” 
said grandma, giving a finishing pull to the sash. 
“ Sit down in a corner and then complain that 
people don’t talk to them. Why don’t they 
stir around themselves ? Now, Nellie, where’s 
the use of your education if it doesn’t teach you 
how to talk ? Besides, it’s selfish in you. I’ve 
noticed how you sit down at the socials and ex- 
pect people to come and amuse you. Why 
don’t you help interest other people? They 
have just as much right to look to you for enter- 
tainment as you have to look to them.” 

Well, I thought that was a funny way for 
grandma to talk. 

And then I didn’t think any thing more about 


i6o NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

what she said until I was sitting in a seat at the 
social and not knowing what to do with myself. 

“ How stupid it all is ! ” I said to myself ; and 
then as I caught sight of grandma in the dis- 
tance enjoying herself, talking to old Mrs. Bat- 
kin, who has one eye and stutters, I remembered 
grandma’s words to me. 

“ How good she is to always interest herself 
in people,” I said to myself. “I’ve no doubt 
old Mrs. Batkin is regaling her for* the fourteenth 
time with the story of how that other eye was 
put out. I wonder if I can’t find some individ- 
ual in this crowd to sacrifice myself to.” 

I looked all through the congregation, and I 
did not see a mortal that I cared to talk to. But 
that would never do. Mrs. Batkin was having 
a fine social. Where was my Mrs. Batkin or 
Mrs. Something? Here and there I could see 
some folks in my fix, waiting for some one to 
come and amuse them. 

I had never noticed before that there were 
such people. I thought I was the only one. 
But I looked at one corner, and there were a 
man and his wife that live several miles away, 
and do not know many of our church. Those 
two looked lonely, but I did not dare to go and 
speak to them. 


BADASS AH AND /. i6i 

I looked around and saw others, but at last I 
spied an old colored woman sitting by herself 
and looking as if no one had spoken to her. I’ve 
seen her at church sometimes, but I don’t know 
her name. I thought I should dare to talk to 
her, so I jumped up and slipped over there. 

It was awkward work getting to talking at 
first, for she was too humble, and kept saying, 
“ Yes, miss,” to every thing. But at last we 
started on the right track, and I really had a de- 
lightful talk with her. I know I had a better 
time than grandma had with Mrs. Batkin. I 
was astonished. I learned a good deal, too. 
She told me about her life in Mississippi, and 
about the cotton-fields there. Now, I never saw 
a cotton-field in my life, but that woman de- 
scribed one till I felt as if I could see how it all 
looked. She said it is a beautiful sight to see a 
cotton-field all in bloom, and sometimes she used 
to like the picking well enough. It was not 
very hard work when she felt like it. And 
she described cotton-seed to me. Why, I learned 
a good deal from her, and she became quite 
interested talking about old times, and after 
awhile she began to talk to me about her daugh- 
ter. 

“ I alius think of her when I see you young 
11 


1 62 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

girls kitin’ round so bright an’ pretty,” said she. 
“ ’Course my girl was black, but then she was 
just as pretty as ’most any you see. An’ she 
used to be well, but I dunno what the why was, 
but she took to coughin’ an’ coughin’, till at 
last she just lay down an’ died. It didn’t ’pear 
as though I could give her up noway, an’ after 
she died I used to lie nights in the old cabin an' 
cry, an’ when I went a-cotton-pickin’ the other 
black folks used to look at me, an’ I’d hear them 
say down low: ‘Mammy ’Lizy’ll die ’fore long, 
shore. She’s just pinin’ away over poor Jinny.’ 

“But it wasn’t that, chile, it wasn’t that so 
much as ’twas I couldn’t forgive the Lord no- 
way. Seems ’s though Satan got right up to my 
ear, an’ says he: ‘ Now, Mammy ’Lizy, just see 
how ’tis. You thought you were a Christian, 
an’ you tried to serve the Lord faithful, an’ now 
just see how he treats you. Takes away the 
only chile you’ve got, an’ leaves you, poor ole 
woman, to work in the cotton-held alone.’ 

“An’ I didn’t have no sperit left to tell Satan 
to shut up; but I just kept on a-mournin’ an’ 
thinkin’ that I ought to have my girl, an’ the 
Lord oughtn’t to take her away. 

“ Well, I went on so for a long time, an’ then 
one day our minister came over to see us. Brud- 


BADASSAH AND 1. 


163 

der ’Polios, we always called him, an’ he was a 
mighty good man. He worked in the cotton- 
field ’long with the rest of us, but off times he’d 
preach. ’Feared as though he alius give me a 
histe toward heaven. But this time I was feel- 
ing so disgustable I just didn’t ’spect no help. 

“ But Brudder ’Polios knew howto help ’most 
any body. He never got the hang of this world 
very well, but ’pears as though he knew all about 
the other, and he says : ‘ Sister, I’se come to read 
to yeh.’ For Brudder ’Polios could read some. 
Young massa taught him. 

“ And, O, chile, what a blessed good thing 
readin’ is! In course, you can read,” and the 
old soul looked at me in admiration. 

“ Yes,” I said, feeling as if I had never appre- 
ciated the fact. 

She nodded. 

“ It’s powerful nice to know how to read the 
Bible,” said she. “I can read a bit now. I 
took in washin’ to pay a lady to teach me. 
May be if I could have had a Bible an’ read it 
when Jinny died Satan wouldn’t have got so 
near me. But he just ran off when Brudder 
’Polios sat down an’ read to me ’bout heaven 
where Jinny’d gone, an’ ’bout the glory of 
God lightin’ it, an’ there not bein’ no sick folks 


164 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

there, nor no cryin’ an’ pain. I just set an’ 
listened. It was new to me. I knew some of 
it before, but ’twan’t like havin’ it read to me 
out of God’s own book. 

“ An’ after awhile Brudder ’Polios stopped 
readin’, an’ he looked at me, an’ he said : ‘ Now, 
Sister ’Lizy, I reckon you hate the Lord for tak- 
in’ Jinny where she’ll never have to lie ’wake 
nights coughin’, nor work hard pickin’ cotton, 
don’t you ? ’ 

“ An’ I was a-cryin’, but I said : ‘ No, Brud- 
der ’Polios, ’deed I don’t no more. Jinny loved 
the Lord, an’ I know she’s with him.’ 

“ Nor Satan never got such a hold of me since. 
No, miss. My Jinny’s been happy all these 
years, an’ I’ll see her again some day, I know.” 

She nodded her black head and wiped her 
eyes with a red handkerchief. 

And then, to my surprise, it was supper-time, 
and I hadn’t had a bit of a stupid time at that 
social. 

I guess grandma’s way of making socials inter- 
esting is a pretty good one, and I don’t think 
Aunt ’Lizy was very lonely at the social, either, 
not nearly so much so as she would have been 
if I hadn’t gone to her. Anyway, grandma told 
me afterward that she didn’t think that I had 


HADASSAH AND I. 165 

been as selfish as usual. And a sort of reversi- 
ble compliment like that from my grandmother 
is something to think about. 

March 24. — Miss Towne went to see the serv- 
ice in the synagogue last Saturday. She told 
me about it. She said that it was the bar-mitz- 
va day of a little Jewish boy. 

“ What does bar-mitzva mean? " I asked. 

“ ‘ Son of the commandment,’ ” answered Miss 
Towne. “ It is the rite of confirmation among 
the Hebrews. The little boy had become thir- 
teen years old. That is the age at which a Jew- 
ish boy can take the rite.” 

“ What did the boy do ? ” I asked. “Or did 
they do something to him ? ” 

“ During a part of the service he stood at the 
reading-desk with his back to the congregation,” 
said Miss Towne, “ and chanted a long Hebrew 
selection. The rabbi said afterward that it was 
quite a difficult one. I do not think that any 
of my scholars would thank me if I should stand 
up in public and say such things of them as the 
rabbi said to his congregation about that little 
boy who was sitting in a chair facing us. It 
seems that the rabbi teaches boys in the even- 
ings, and prepares them for the bar-mitzva^ and 


1 66 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

# 

he says that a boy seldom becomes ready for 
that rite without having felt the rod of his 
teacher, and the boy before us was no excep- 
tion to the rule.” 

“ Did the boy like such a speech ? ” I asked. 

“ I couldn’t see that it embarrassed him in 
the least,” said Miss Towne, smiling. “ Proba- 
bly he thought that it was some honor to have 
the rabbi stand up and make a speech about 
him, no matter if the allusions were not always 
complimentary. The rabbi said, too : ‘The boy 
has not taken easily to his books. Night after 
night I have taught him, because I knew that 
his family are poor, hard-working people. If 
they had been rich I might not have been able 
to spend so much time on him. But the boy 
has plodded away at his books like a man.’ ” 

“ Then the rabbi did deign to praise him a 
little?” I said. 

“Yes,” said Miss Towne, “ the rabbi said that 
it was proper to make such remarks as he did, 
that it was right that every thing should be pub- 
licly mentioned, in order that the boy might 
mend his faults. And the pale-faced little fel- 
low sat still and meekly listened as if he believed 
that what the rabbi said about his pupil’s stupid 
brain were true. 


HADASSAH AND I. 


167 


“ Then the boy went up into the pulpit and 
recited a prayer in English. He began it with a 
peculiar kind of drawl, perhaps intended to imi- 
tate the sound of Hebrew chanting. He gave 
us an English address, and then asked the con- 
gregation to rise while he should offer what he 
termed his ‘ childish prayer.’ In that he prayed 
especially for his father and mother that they 
might have long life and obedient children ; and 
he spoke of the sacrifices that his parents had 
made for him. 

“ The rabbi said that the boy had now at- 
tained his religious majority. Few boys ever 
forgot their bar-mitzi’a day, and the little book 
in which the boy’s address to the congregation 
is sometimes written is kept in the family as a 
kind of heirloom. The rabbi charged the boy 
to be good, honest, and to keep the Sabbath.” 

Miss Towne said, too, that last Saturday is 
called the “Great Sabbath,” or the “Sabbath 
Hagadol,” because it is the last one, the Jews 
say, that they had before they came out of the 
land of Egypt. And the portion of Scripture 
for the day, the “ Haftarah,” as they call it, is 
Malachi, third and fourth chapters. Only Miss 
Towne says that in the book that they handed 
her in the synagogue it said Malachi iii, because 


1 68 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

the third and fourth chapters of that book are put 
together into one of twenty-four verses instead of 
two of eighteen and six verses, as it is in our Bible. 

March 30. — Hadassah is Number One and I 
am Number Two. I don’t think there is much use 
in my writing that sentence many more times in 
this book. It’s becoming a settled thing. But 
I wont have it so next year. I am glad I haven’t 
tried to stand head this term. I feel a great deal 
stronger than I did last year at this time, and I 
believe it’s all owing to my not worrying quite 
so much over the lessons. I wish next year 
were here. I’m in a hurry to be a senior. 

April 2. — “ What are those things ? ” I said to 
Inez. 

She had spilled a number of square printed 
pieces of paper on the floor and was picking 
them up. Inez and I know each other well 
enough so that we can ask each other questions, 
and I wanted to know what the things were. 

“ Tracts,” said Inez, handing me two. One 
was the hymn, “ Just As I Am,” and the other 
was part of the third chapter of John. 

“ What do you do with them ? ” I asked, hand- 
ing her back the leaflets. 


HADASSAH AND /. 


169 


“ Distribute them,” said Inez. “ I can do it 
on the train coming to school, you know, and 
going home again at night.’' 

“ But you don’t mean — you don’t go up to 
people and hand them tracts, do you ? ” I asked, 
astonished beyond measure, for Inez is always 
quite particular to be ladylike, and the vision of 
her standing giving tracts to strangers was rather 
startling to me. 

“ O, no,” said Inez; “ I mean that I leave one 
in my seat, so that the next one who sits there will 
find the tract and read it. And if I’m early at a 
station, and there isn’t any one to observe my 
actions, I leave two or three tracts around on the 
seats, or I pin one in a window-ledge where the 
fluttering will attract attention.” 

“ Do you ever see people reading the tracts ? ” 
I asked. 

“ O, yes, often,” said Inez, putting the little 
bundle into her satchel. “ People that I couldn’t 
have spoken to, old men and women, and some- 
times men that looked as if they might be 
tramps. The tracts in t’ne stations get read 
most, I think. People are glad to have some- 
thing to read while they wait for the train.” 

“ Well, do you suppose that the tracts do any 
good, really ? ” I said. 


170 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“ I hope SO,” said Inez, soberly. “ It’s ex- 
tending the invitation, anyway, and you know 
that’s what we are to do. ‘ Go ye therefore into 
the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid 
to the marriage.’ ” 

“ But did you ever hear of any body accept- 
ing an invitation given that way?” I persisted. 

“ Yes, I did once,” said Inez. “ An old lady 
who was going into the country called on us to 
say ‘ good-bye,’ and we gave her a package of 
tracts and asked her to distribute them. She 
said she would. She was gone several months, 
and when she came back she told us of a young 
man who had been converted by one of those 
tracts. She said that she left the little hotel where 
she was staying and went out one day, and as she 
passed down the street of the country town she 
threw one of the tracts down on the sidewalk. 

“ A young man who was visiting the town saw 
the tract fall, and after she had walked on he 
came to the place and picked the paper up. He 
carried it with him to his room, he read it, and 
through reading he became a Christian. And 
afterward he hunted up the woman who had 
thrown down the tract, and he told her of the 
good her act had done him. And she told him 
all the previous history of the tracts.” 


HADASSAH AND I. 


171 


Inez stopped. 

“What previous history do you mean?” I 
asked. 

“Nothing,” said Inez; “only my sister died 
two years ago, you know, and she had belonged 
to the church only a few years, and she did not 
feel as if she had done much good in" the world, 
and so before she died she asked us if we would 
take a little money that she had and always use 
the interest of it in giving to missionary purposes 
and in buying tracts for distribution. And so 
we do, and we hope she is doing good in the 
world still, although she is dead.” 

Inez did not say any more just then. She was 
too near crying. But after awhile she came to 
my desk and said : “ May be you would like to 
distribute some, too, Nellie ? If you would I 
will bring you a package. I think there is noth- 
ing in them but what you had just as lief dis- 
tribute. Father always takes pains to pick out 
only such tracts as tell people in the plainest 
style possible the way to become Christians.” 

So I let Inez bring me a package, for I couldn’t 
get out of doing so very well. She brought 
them, and I was going to give them to Clara 
Wilson to leave on the boat going to the city, 
but grandma saw them and had me tell her all 


172 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

about them, and she insists on distributing them 
herself. She says she knows just where they 
will do the most good. 

I never thought much before about distribut- 
ing tracts. I always had a kind of idea that no 
one but a fanatic would do such a thing. But 
Inez isn’t a fanatic. She’s a good, earnest 
Christian girl, and I do believe that she’s trying 
to “ extend the invitation,” as she calls it, just as 
far and as fast as she can. 

It’s “ sowing beside all waters,” grandma says, 
and she thinks that Inez must feel repaid by hear- 
ing of even one person being turned to Christ 
by the tracts. Grandma says that she is sorry 
that she didn’t think of it when she brought up 
her family ; she would have taught every one of 
them to distribute tracts. And she is always 
going to keep tracts in this house hereafter, 
and we must help her distribute them. She says 
that Clara Wilson can buy her own tracts, and 
she’s going to tell her about it. I know Clara 
will doit in a minute, if she hasn’t done it already, 
for that girl picks up every good idea she can find 
and puts it into practice. So may be Inez’s 
story will make more than one person “ go and 
do likewise.” Inez says that five cents will buy 
forty-eight one-page tracts. 


HADASSAH AND /. 


173 


April 3. — Hadassah told me some queer things 
to-day. Last Siinda}^ was Easter, and it reminded 
me of the passover, so I asked her if that is over 
this year. She said : “ Yes, that was last week ; 
the Jews have begun to count on till Pentecost.” 

And then she told me of the customs of the 
Jews during these days. She says that the strict 
Jews put off all marriages until after Pentecost ; 
and she doesn’t know that any of the Jews around 
here are so superstitious, but she says that there are 
Jews, uneducated people mostly, who look on 
these fifty days with superstitious dread, and are 
always in a hurry for them to be over, because it is 
thought that during them one is particularly lia- 
ble to sudden death or to the effects of malaria, 
and evil spirits have greater influence over chil- 
dren. She says some such Jews will not ride or 
drive or go on the water during the fifty days, 
and they will not whistle in the evening for fear 
it should bring bad luck. 

I told her I thought it was all nonsense, and 
she said she thought so, too. 

May 14.- — Clara Wilson went over last week 
to the Fruit and Flower Mission in the city. The 
works of that girl are manifold. And yet I don’t 
think that she is self-righteous over them. Of 


174 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

course, no one has a right to be self-righteous, 
but I notice that some people are. In fact, I 
have had such a feeling myself sometimes, unlikely 
as it might appear to any one who knows how I 
live. 

But I did wonder that Clara should spend so 
much time over her garden this spring. That is, 
I wondered until one morning I took a look out 
of my window at half past five A. M. I don’t 
usually gaze much at the world as early as that, 
but I did that morning, and whom should I see 
but that girl Clara tugging a basket down the 
street. 

I accused her of it the next time I met her, 
for I was curious to know what she could possibly 
be doing so early. 

She informed me that she always gets up early 
Thursday morning, and carries a basket of flow- 
ers down to the express-office to be taken on the 
six o’clock train to the city. There the flowers 
go to the rooms of the Fruit and Flower Mission. 

So, after that, I didn’t wonder over Clara’s 
spending so much time in her garden. 

Well, as I said, last week she went over herself 
to see the mission, and a girl there. Miss Perrin 
by name, took Clara with her, and went to the 
French Hospital, where Miss Perrin was going to 


HADASSAB AND /. 175 

distribute flowers. And Miss Perrin told Clara 
a story that shows how much those sick folks 
think of the posies. 

“You see,” said Miss Perrin to Clara, “ the 
girls chose me to visit the French Hospital be- 
cause I can talk French a little. I have to talk 
it a good deal before I leave the hospital on 
Thursdays, though. That is, I have to say over a 
great many times the few words that I do know. 

“ But once, when I had just begun to go to the 
hospital, I did a dreadful thing. I hurt an old 
man’s feelings so that he cried. 

“ He was a man who used to keep a little pea- 
nut-stand over on Castro Street, but he became 
so old and sick at last that he could not support 
himself, so he came to this hospital. 

“ Well, they told me afterward that that day — 
that Thursday — he was sitting on the steps back 
of the hospital with his eyes shut, talking to 
himself about heaven. He had been reading 
about it in his French Bible. 

“ ‘ It must be a beautiful land,’ he said to him- 
self; ‘a land such as France was when I was 
young. And the people are never old in heaven 
and they have no more pain. Ah, how much I 
should like to go there ! ’ 

“ And then the old man stood up and tottered 


176 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

down the steps to take a short walk around the 
garden. At the end of the walk he sat down on 
a seat under a grape-vine, and, feeling tired, he 
went to sleep and did not wake till the gong 
sounded for dinner. 

“ You see, he had forgotten that it was Thurs- 
day. He thought that it was Wednesday. But 
it was Flower Mission Day, and I was in the 
hospital going from one room to another, giving 
the flowers to the old men about the fire-place, 
and filling the bottles that stood on the tables 
of the patients who were lying too sick to help 
themselves. The poor people are always so glad 
to think that there are some folks left yet in the 
world who care enough for them to search them 
out and give them even such trifles as flowers. I 
have to listen to ever so many things before I 
leave, and that day I saw so many persons that 
I quite forgot to miss the wrinkled face and 
cracked voice of that poor old man who was 
asleep on the seat in the garden. And so I went 
off and never once thought of him or left him 
a single flower. 

“ So, when he hobbled in at noon, he found all 
the other sick people rejoicing over their flowers, 
and arranging them in green glass bottles that 
took the place of vases. 


HADASSAH AND I. 


77 


“ ‘ See, see my beautiful roses ! ’ cried Pierre, a 
lame boy, in one corner of the room. 

“ ‘ Ah, my sweet violets ! ’ cried another, from 
his sick bed. 

“ And the poor old man stood in dismay. He 
was very weak and childish, and he felt as hurt 
as a baby would at a slight. 

“‘Has the good child, then, been here?’ he 
asked, his poor old voice breaking with disap- 
pointment. ‘ Alas, alas ! I have no flowers.’ 

“ And the poor old man actually sank down in 
a chair and burst out crying. ^ 

“ Of course, all the other patients were very 
sympathetic, and offered to give him some of 
their flowers, but the old man could not be 
comforted. 

“‘Ah,’ he sighed, ‘I must have done some- 
thing to make the good child angry. She will 
never give me any flowers again.’ 

“ And all the next week that old man mourned 
over his flowers. He was so childish that the 
loss seemed a tremendous one to him. 

“ Well, you have no idea how dreadfully sorry 
I felt the next Thursday when I came to that 
hospital and heard how I had made that patient 
old soul feel. I came in as usual with my basket 

of flowers and big bundle of F'rench papers, and 
12 


178 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

I was surrounded instantly by a crowd of in- 
terested patients, who began to explain to me 
that I had omitted the old man in my last 
week’s distribution. 

“ The people were so excited and jabbered so, 
all of them talking together-, that it was as much 
as I could do to understand any thing. 

“ But when I did I looked around for the 
neglected old man, and there he was in a corner, 
fairly trembling and ready to cry for fear I should 
deny him again the wished-for flowers. 

“You don’t know how I felt when I under- 
stood! Why, I just hated myself for the minute. 
To think that I should have skipped that old 
soul ! 

“Well, I went straight to him, and tried to 
explain matters in my very best French, which 
wasn’t any too good, but I guess he got a glimpse 
of my meaning, anyway, for the frightened look 
went out of his eyes, and when I gave him two of 
my biggest and prettiest bouquets his old face 
fairly beamed, and he made me the Frenchiest 
bow, and then hobbled off to borrow an extra 
bottle from some one, so that he could have his 
two bouquets on his own little table. And I 
guess he understood that the ‘ good child ’ was 
not angry with him after all ; but I can assure you 


HADASSAH AND /. 


179 


that the ‘ good child ’ felt that she was an 
extremely bad one, and ever after took pains to 
fix the faces of the patients firmly in her 
memory.” 

Clara said that Miss Perrin said that the old 
man died about a month after this. 

Clara has come back from her city visit all 
ablaze with zeal for the Fruit and Flower Mission, 
and any day I can see her digging in her garden. 
She has begged slips of plants from every one in 
town, I guess, and she has interested Mrs. Lacy 
in the project, so that that woman lets Clara 
come over and strip the garden of the choicest 
blossoms every Wednesday evening. 

Clara has her eye on Miss Brundage. She’s 
an old maid who lives a little way out of town. 
She’s lame and wrinkled and wears false hair in 
curls. She is the queerest, crossest old maid I 
ever heard of. One of the girls who worked 
there told us that Miss Brundage scolds all the 
time. 

But Miss Brundage — “ Sary Ann,” most folks 
call her, “ Snap-Your-Head-Off,” as the boys 
name her — has a' great many apple-trees. The 
boys bother her in the summer coming to get 
those apples. For Miss Brundage doesn’t care to 
sell them. She is very well off and doesn’t need 


i8o NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

the money, and she always seems to act as if it 
were a great insult to have any one offer to buy 
even a basketful. And so those beautiful red 
and yellow ripe apples drop on the ground under 
the trees, and all that fruit rots there. 

I should think that “ Sary Ann ” would feel as 
if she were wicked about it, but she doesn’t seem 
to. The trees were all planted by her father, 
and she holds them sacred for his sake, I suppose. 
But she might do a little good with the apples, I 
should think, even if she doesn’t want to sell 
them. 

But no good ever comes of those apples, ex- 
cept that Miss Brundage eats a few, and makes 
her hired man, Sam, gather some of them for 
vinegar. 

I should think that the boyswould steal them. 
I have wanted an apple many a time myself 
when I have walked past there and seen the 
beauties loading down some of the trees till the 
branches almost broke. 

That girl who lived there told me that in the 
summer there is a perpetual fight going on 
between Sary and the boys. She rushes out 
with her broom uplifted, screaming : “ Here, get 
out, you thieves ! Get out ! ” And the boys skip 
over the fence and make fun of her, and the 


HADASSAH AND I. 


i8i 


minute she’s back in the house they’re at the 
apple-trees again. 

Well, Clara actually is going to see Sary Ann 
when apples are ripe. Clara says that she is 
bound that the Fruit and Flower Mission is going 
to have ever so many of Miss Brundage’s apples 
to give to sick and poor people that never have 
fruit. I tell Clara her appeal to Sary Ann will 
be a failure, but Clara seems very hopeful. I 
would as soon think of going to see a bear in 
her den as Sary Ann in her castle. 

Clara has even captured some of the boys of 
her Sabbath-school class and made them go out 
on the hills gathering wild-flowers with her. I 
told her that I didn’t believe that city folks 
would care anything about wild-flowers, but my 
premature wisdom received its rebuke the next 
week when Clara showed me a most abjectly 
thankful postal-card from the mission rooms, 
telling her that the wild-flowers were just the 
things most wanted ; that sick folks cried over 
them because they were such flowers as they 
used to pick when children. And the mission 
folks did hope that Clara would send them some 
more. Hereafter I shall not give Clara any of 
my valuable advice. I think she can get along 
without it. She knows more than I about some 


i 82 number one, or NUMBER TWO? 

things, even if she never has seen the interior of 
the high-school. 

Seems to me she finds ever so many ways to do 
good, but I do hope she doesn’t have the putting 
together of flowers for the sick folks’ bouquets. 
I’d suggest to her that she send loose flowers, if 
I were in the city-folks’ places, because Clara 
doesn’t knaw how to put the flowers together. 
She’d be likely to set a yellow nasturtium in the 
midst of a bunch of red fish geraniums, and 
pronounce the effect perfect. 

However, she doesn’t wear such mixtures of 
colors herself as she used to a year ago. I think 
that Mrs. Lacy is quietly trying to reform Clara’s 
tastes in such a way as not to hurt her feelings. 
Clara doesn’t wear more than three separate 
colors at a time, as a usual thing, now, and that 
is a great improvement. I fancy that Mrs. Lacy 
must have had to go to work very carefully 
though, and how she did it I don’t u^nderstand, 
but she must have done something, for there’s 
no one else to tell Clara, and she never would 
have thought of it herself. But she thinks now 
that every thing that Mrs. Lacy does or s^ys is 
just perfect. Even her criticising seems to have 
attractions for Clara. I never used to take Mrs. 
Lacy’s criticisms very well, but the other day 


HADASSAH AND /. 


183 

Clara said to me : “ Mrs. Lacy has just been 
giving me some hints about teaching my class. 
I am so glad to have her suggestions. I think 
that I am particularly fortunate in having Mrs. 
Lacy to tell me just how to do things. If I 
could learn to be as good a teacher as she is I 
should be very glad.’* 

“You will be,” I said, and she went off per- 
fectly happy. 

It takes a very little to make some people 
happy. 

May 22. — I picked a great bouquet of flowers 
last night and carried them over to Clara Wilson. 
Sometimes I do that Wednesday nights, so that 
she can put the flowers in with hers for the mis- 
sion Thursday morning. 

Clara met me at the door with the scissors in 
her hand. She was just going out to pick her 
own flowers. 

“ O, Nellie,” she said, as she saw me, “ Fm so 
glad you brought so many white ones. A girl 
died to-day in a hospital in the city, and I was 
going to get all the white flowers I could. Yours 
are lovely.” • 

“Who was the girl?” I asked, as I gave my 
flowers to Clara. 


184 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“ A poor lame thing who has been in the hos- 
pital about a week,” said Clara, sitting down on 
the steps with me. “I believe the nurse said 
that the girl’s name was Callie Jenkins.” 

“Why, I used to know her! ” I said, aston- 
ished. “ She used to go to the high-school.” 

“I don’t believe this can be the same one,” 
said Clara ; “ for this girl seemed to be very — 
well, I don’t know as you could call it stupid 
exactly, but queer. She was tall and red-headed 
and had a wooden foot.” 

“ That’s the very one ! ” I said. 

And then Clara told me about her. It wasn’t 
the old horse that died that vacation. It was 
the girl’s mother instead. She had worn her- 
self out trying to support Callie and herself by 
doing washing and ironing, or cleaning house for 
people. She said she wanted Callie to have as 
good a chance as any body, so she sent her to 
school. 

“I couldn’t never learn nothing,” Callie said 
to Clara one day. “ The books was too hard, 
and I couldn’t make nothing out of them ; but I 
had an'algebry that was full of crosses, and maw 
used to tell me about Him that died on the 
cross. Wont you tell me over again ? ” 

Clara said that after her mother’s death Callie 


HADASSAH AND I. 


185 

had gone to the city to live with her aunt. But 
the aunt was very poor, too, and when Callie 
had the fall that made her sick the aunt was un- 
able to take care of her and had to send her to 
a hospital. 

“ Whatever the girl knew or didn’t know,” 
said Clara, busily separating the white flowers 
from the rest of my bouquet, “ she understood 
about the Saviour and the cross. I think her 
mother must have taught her that from Callie’s 
earliest years. It seemed to be the only thing 
she did understand that last day or two, and 
when the nurse told her that she was going to 
die Callie looked at her a minute, and then 
said : ‘ Then I can see Him that died on the 
cross, can’t I ? ’ And when the nurse told her 
‘ Yes,’ she seemed perfectly contented.” 

If it had not been for the school I would have 
gone to the city with Clara this morning and 
seen Callie buried. But I knew I could not do 
any thing there if I went. Clara said that sev- 
eral of the Fruit and Flower Mission girls would 
be there, and the aunt would come, of course. I 
thought that I would not tell the girls at school 
any thing about it. They did not care about 
Callie, and probably would not feel much inter- 
ested. 


1 86 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

But I did tell Miss Towne. I knew she would 
want to know. 

When I had told her all, she said : “ If she 
missed the wisdom of this world she had the 
best wisdom, after all, hadn’t she, Nellie ? I 
am afraid that a good many girls who go through 
this high-school, and who make brilliant recita- 
tions, are more to be pitied than poor Callie, for 
they have not that ‘wisdom that cometh down 
from above.’ If I could only teach that to the 
girls, as well as the algebra and geometry ! ” 

And then I went away and left Miss Towne, 
but I said to myself then : “ Whenever I meet 
stupid, queer people, I’m going to try and help 
them all I can hereafter. I’m not going to skip 
them.” 

Now, Nellie Merritt, don't forget that good 
resolution as you have forgotten so many others. 

May 24. — Just this last month of the term I 
have been Number One. It was this way. 
There was an examination of applicants for 
teachers’ certificates. The examination was to 
be held in this building, and Hadassah wanted 
to see if she could pass. She is going to teach 
some day, and she wanted to see if she knows 
enough now to get a certificate of any kind. So 


HADASSAH AND 2, 


187 


she left our room for the four or five days that 
the examinations lasted, and, of course, she lost 
all the credits for that time in our class, and I 
held my place, so at the end of the month I was 
Number One and she Two. 

I don’t think Hadassah cared much, though, 
she was so -interested in other things. She did 
get a teacher’s second-grade certificate, and she 
says she hopes she will know enough to get a 
first-grade one by the time she graduates from 
the high-school. 

That remark shows that she means to stay 
next year and go through. Well, next year is 
the year that I’ve been saving my strength for. 

May 30. — The graduates all did finely this year. 
The valedictorian was just loaded down with 
flowers. Don’t I hope I’ll be in her place next 
year. 

Mr. Gardner came to the graduating exercises, 
and he said that in his opinion the graduates 
wore too costly dresses. That’s just what I 
think. There were two or three in that graduat- 
ing class who had to scrimp ever so much to get 
their dresses, and there was one girl who had 
stood pretty high in the class — I don’t think 
any lower than Number Four or Five — and she 


1 88 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

absolutely could not afford a costly graduation 
dress, and she had to wear something cheap, 
poor thing ! I was sorry for her, and I sent 
her a bouquet of flowers after she had read her 
essay. 

I think it was mean in the graduating class to 
insist on having so expensive dresses when they 
knew that some of the girls couldn’t afford them. 
Of course, there are girls in that class whose fa- 
thers are rich and could afford to let them grad- 
uate in white silk if they wanted to. But I think 
it was foolish in those girls who ought not to 
have afforded it to run in debt, or go without 
other things, as I’ve no doubt they did. Boys 
always have an easier time than girls about such 
things. I presume that all those graduating 
boys did was just to put on their Sunday clothes 
and pin rosebuds on their coats, and they were 
ready. 

Our class felt so indignant over the way the 
graduates had acted toward each other that we 
held a meeting at which we all voted that when 
we graduate a year hence, the girls sha’n’t wear 
any thing but calico. Ma said afterward that 
we needn’t have been quite so sweeping ; we 
might have said white piqu^, or something that 
would be a good deal cheaper than white silk. 


HADASSAH AND /. 


189 


But we girls were so disgusted that we didn’t 
care much what we did vote for. We were 
bound to choose something that the poorest of 
us could buy. And there are calicoes that are 
just lovely in color and pattern. 


190 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 


SKNIOR CLASS. 

July 7. — Now for the struggle! No one 
knows how hard I am going to work this year ! 

August 8. — Our first month’s reports for the 
senior year have just been handed to us. I am 
Number One. Hadassah was disappointed, but 
she will try harder this next month. So shall I ! 

September 9. — Hadassah is Number Two again. 
There is no need of saying who is Number One. 
Of course, I am ! 

October g . — Number One again. Ninety-eight 
per cent. ! Mother looks very tired all the time. 
There is so much housework, and I cannot help 
her at all. I don’t even put my room to rights 
mornings, and sometimes it isn’t done when I 
come home at night. Mother will say : “ I 
haven’t had time to do it to-day, Nellie ! ” 

And then I hurry things around, mentally 
scolding at the time it takes. Of course, I don’t 
want mother to do it, but every minute is pre- 
cious to me. Hadassah has one more day in 
the week to study on than I do. 


HADASSAH AND I. 


191 

In fact, I didn’t do any thing last Sunday. I 
felt too tired. I didn’t go to church or Sunday- 
school, just lay on the lounge all day, too used 
up to half understand what I read in the relig- 
ious papers. Ma gave me a dose of quinine, 
and grandma gave me a talking. From the re- 
viving effect of one or the other of these two 
things I felt much better Monday morning. I 
lament the fact that I went to sleep in the midst 
of grandma’s talk, and all I remember of it was 
a mild insinuation of hers that one method of 
breaking the Sabbath is to work so hard all the 
week that a person hasn’t any energy left for 
Sunday. My grandma is a very plain-spoken 
individual. She especially shows that side of 
her nature to her grandchildren. Not that she 
scolds, but she talks. 

O, yes ; I do remember one more thing she 
did before I went to sleep. She read me Long- 
fellow’s “ Sifting of Peter.” I suppose she 
thought the second and third verses were par- 
ticularly applicable to me : 

“ Satan desires us, great and small. 

As wheat, to sift us, and we all 
Are tempted ; 

Not one, however rich or great. 

Is by his station or estate 
Exempted. 


192 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“ No house so safelv guarded is 
But he, by some device of his, 

Can enter; 

No heart hath armor so complete 
But he can pierce with arrows fleet 
Its center.” 

After my nap Bessie came home from Sun- 
day-school and regaled me with an account of 
what Clara and her infant-class are going to do 
in the Sabbath-school concert next Sunday 
evening. The babies are going to sing and re- 
cite. I’ve no doubt it will be interesting. 

Clara did make Miss Brundage give those ap- 
ples. Clara is a wonderful child. She has be- 
come a model of bravery since she has been 
doing so much mission work. 

Well, what she did was to march out to Sary 
Ann’s residence one hot day. The trees were 
loaded with apples, and the ground was covered 
with them. 

Clara went straight up through the orchard to 
the house. 

Weren’t you scared ? ” I asked her when she 
told me about it. 

“ Well, yes,” answered Clara, truthfully ; “ but 
I knew that Miss Brundage couldn’t do me any 
more harm at the worst than to hit me with her 
broom, and I thought I could stand that if she 


IIADASSAH AND I. 


193 


didn’t hit too hard. I didn’t mean to let things 
go as far as that, though.” 

Clara went to the door and rapped. 

No one answered, although Clara could hear a 
churn going. 

So she rapped again, louder than before. 

Pretty soon she heard a limping person com- 
ing. Poor Clara caught her breath. The door 
opened a crack, and Miss Brundage put her 
head out, the false curls in a snarl all over her 
head. 

“ Well ? ” she said, frowning at Clara. 

I came to see you about your apples,” Clara 
said. 

“ You did, hey ? ” said Miss Brundage. “ Well, 
I guess you may as well go home the way you 
came, if that’s your errand. How many apples 
did you eat as you came through the orchard ? ” 

“ None,” answered Clara, rather indignantly. 
“ I don't steal.” 

“You don’t, hey?” said Miss Brundage. 
“ Mighty honest ? Wouldn’t steal a pin, and 
all that sort of thing ? Well, you needn’t think 
that you can buy, either. Lots of folks want to 
buy my apples, but I wont sell them. When 
my father planted those trees, says he to me, 

says he : ‘ Sary Ann, I’m planting these trees for 
13 


194 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

my children and my relations. They’re the 
ones that are going to eat the apples.’ 

“ Father was always a man of his word, and 
as long as we had any relatives we give them 
apples. And so I don’t ever let any one but 
relatives have them. There’s Squire Ellis, now. 
He’s had a dozen boxes of my apples every 
year, because he looked at his old family Bible 
and he read in the records writ there that his 
great-grandfather married a Brundage once. So 
the squire rode out here and told me that he’s a 
sort of relation of mine, and I give him all the 
apples he wants every year, and I never charge 
him nothing, because I know father wouldn’t 
like charging relatives. And Squire Ellis sends 
me over a barrel of flour or something every 
Christmas, just reg’lar. He’s a good relative.” 

Clara said she almost laughed over that speech, 
for she knew that, with Sary before his eyes, it 
must have cost Squire Ellis a great deal of hu- 
miliation to own that any of his ancestors ever 
married any one of any Brundage family, for 
Squire Ellis is an exceedingly refined, stately, 
gentlemanly person. But, alas ! he relishes ap- 
ples more than any other kind of fruit that he 
ever saw ; he keeps apples in the house the year 
round, and no one in this district has such ap- 


HADASSAH AND I. 


95 


pies as Sary Ann, mellow and jucy and beautiful 
to look at. Hence the squire’s humility in 
claiming relationship with Sary. 

“ Well,” said Clara to that individual, with a 
brilliancy that I never gave the child credit for, 
“Miss Brundage, I came to see if you wouldn’t 
give a great many apples to a number of your 
relatives who are sick and poor.” 

“My relations?” asked Sary Ann, poking her 
head farther out the door. “ Where’d you find 
them, child ? Come in and tell me about them.” 

And she opened the door, and Clara actually 
walked inside the house and sat down in a chair 
with three legs. 

“Where did you find my relatives?” de- 
manded Sary Ann, standing before Clara’s chair 
and looking severely at her. 

“ In the city,” said Clara, cheerfully. 

“ I am sure that I should have jumped up and 
run home at that point in the conversation, if I 
had been in Clara’s place. 

“ Whereabouts in the city ? ” inquired Miss 
Brundage, with her eyes still fixed on Clara’s 
face. 

“ In the hospitals and poor-house,” said Clara. 

“In the poor-house!” screamed Sary Ann. 
“A Brundage in the poor-house ! Let me just 


196 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

find them and I’ll bring them here to live, if 
they eat every apple on the place ! ” 

“ I didn’t say they were Brundages,” said 
Clara, calmly ; “ I said they are your relatives, 
but they don’t have your name. They are your 
brothers and sisters, though, even if you don’t 
know them. For we all are children of our 
Father who is in heaven. He made us all.” 

The eagerness faded entirely out of Sary Ann’s 
face. 

^‘Huh!” she said, with a sniff of contempt. 
“ I’ve heard that sort of talk before. If that’s 
all you’ve come to tell me you may as well go 
home, young woman. I thought you had found 
some real relatives of mine.” 

“They are your real relatives,” answered 
Clara. “ Sick brothers and sisters of yours, lying 
feverish and poor and needy, and you wont even 
send them an apple apiece.” 

Sary Ann looked steadily at her. 

“ Some of them never even tasted apples in 
their lives,” Clara went on. “They are too 
poor. They have passed by fruit and looked at 
it and wanted to take some home, but they were 
never able to buy it. One little boy who was 
brought to the Children’s Hospital with a broken 
leg had never tasted an apple in his life till a 


HADASSAH AND /. 


197 


Fruit and Flower girl brought him one. And 
that little boy is your brother and mine ; there 
are a great many more just like him.’' 

Sary Ann still looked at Clara, but said not a 
word. 

“ So I came,” said Clara, bravely, “ to ask you 
if you would let those poor relatives of yours have 
some apples, but I see that you are going to dis- 
own your relatives, after all.” 

“ How do you know I am?” gruffly asked 
Sary Ann, as Clara rose from her chair and the 
three-legged article of furniture tumbled over. 

“ But I hope you don’t expect me to call so 
many folks ‘ brothers and sisters ’ without seeing 
them, do you ? Young woman, I don’t know 
you. If you’re telling me the truth, will you go 
over to the city with me and show me those 
‘ brothers and sisters,’ as you call them ? ” 

“ Yes, I will,” said Clara, quickly. 

She told me afterward that she said it quickly 
for fear she should not say it at all. She had never 
thought of having to escort Sary Ann to the 
Fruit and Flower Mission, and the idea was a 
very startling one, considering Sary Ann’s ap- 
pearance. 

But Clara was not going to promise and then 
back out. She did go over to the city with Sary 


198 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Ann, and the passengers stared, and Sary recited 
the history of the Brundage family from begin- 
ning to end loudly enough so that every body on 
the train could hear. And one of Sary’s false 
curls dropped off in some mysterious manner, 
and she beckoned to the conductor as he went 
through the train and requested him to find the 
missing ornament for her, and he laughed, and 
at last Clara found it under Sary Ann’s feet. 

But, in spite of every thing, Clara took her to 
mission rooms, and afterward to the hospitals, 
especially the children’s one, and to the poor- 
house, and afterward home again. 

And Miss Brundage said at last, when Clara 
left her at her orchard gate : “ I don’t like the 
looks of some of those ‘ brothers and sisters,’ but 
I’m going to adopt them all. I’m going to have 
more relations than any woman ever had before.” 

So I suppose that Clara felt paid for her trouble. 

And if Sary Ann didn’t have her man Sam 
gather boxes and boxes of apples, the loveliest 
ones on the trees — none of those that had fallen 
on the ground — and pile the boxes on her old 
wagon Thursday, and she drove old Steve, the 
horse, down to the boat, and on board, and into 
the city, and risked her own neck driving through 
the teams to the Fruit and Flower girls at the 


HA DA SS AH AND I. 


199 


mission rooms. Sary commanded the girls not 
to give any person more than two apples, and 
not to give a sick person any unless the nurse 
said they might, for Sary was bound her apples 
shouldn’t make any one sick. 

Then Sary drove home. And every Thursday 
since then she has made the same trip. The 
girls at the mission rooms are acquainted with 
her now, and they talk to her and make a great 
deal of her, so almost all of Sary Ann’s apples 
go to the city. 

She has found a little boy over there that she 
says has the real Brundage nose. She says she 
is sure that if that little boy’s family record 
could be found there would be a Brundage 
somewhere in the list of names. The fact is, I 
believe the woman justifies herself to her con- 
science for giving away the apples by trying to 
see the Brundage look in the faces of all the 
patients. 

Grandma said, when she heard about it, that 
she thought it is a lesson to us to try to see the 
image of the Lord in every body, and to do 
them good for his sake. Grandma hopes that 
Sary Ann will be educated up to that point 
after awhile. Perhaps she will. I’m not sure 
but Clara will reform Sary Ann entirely yet. 


200 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

November 3. — I did not know whether Hadas- 
sah would like it or not. We are studying Vir- 
gil’s Aineid now, and to-day there was a part 
of his description of the lower world that re- 
minded Professor Hazelton of something. He 
skipped off into the middle, room and got the 
Bible that Principal Thorn uses when he reads 
mornings to the school. 

Professor Hazelton explained to us that what 
Virgil said reminded him somewhat of a passage 
in Isaiah, and Professor Hazelton thought that 
some of the ancient Jews had somewhat Virgil’s 
conception of the future life. 

And then Professor Hazelton turned to the 
fourteenth chapter of Isaiah and read us those 
verses about the King of Babylon. 

“ Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet 
thee at thy coming : it stirreth up the dead for 
thee, even all the chief ones of the earth ; it 
hath raised up from their thrones all the kings 
of the nations. All they shall speak and say 
unto thee. Art thou also become weak as we ? art 
thou become like unto us ? Thy pomp is brought 
down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: 
the worm is spread under thee, and the worms 
cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, 
O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut 


HADASSAB AND /. 


201 


down to the ground, which didst weaken the 
nations ! ” 

Professor Hazelton delivered us quite an ad- 
dress on the ignorance of people before Christ's 
time in regard to the future life. But I don’t 
think Hadassah cared whether the beliefs of the 
old Jews and the pagans were similar or oppo- 
site. She looked perfectly indifferent. 

But someway, I have a habit of always look- 
ing at her whenever the Old Testament is men- 
tioned. It is foolish in me, too. Just as though 
the Old Testament doesn’t belong to me fully as 
much as it does to her ! 

November 7. — I do not see what ails me 
lately. Two or three times I have had such a 
queer feeling. Yesterday I knew every word 
of my literature lesson, literally every single 
word. I could recite it perfectly without the 
book, I know, for I did so when I woke up in the 
night. 

Well, Principal Thorn called on me to recite 
in literature, and I stood up, and, do you believe 
it, that whole lesson just vanished from my 
mind! Just completely went out of it, and left 
nothing but a blank behind ! I couldn’t even 
remember what the lesson was about. It was 


202 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

like tearing some pages out of a book and 
throwing them away. 

* Principal Thorn saw that something was 
wrong. He couldn’t believe that I hadn’t 
studied my lesson, for he knows I always do 
that, so after looking curiously at me, he asked 
me some simple question, and I blundered into 
an answer of some kind and sat down. 

I have felt so two or three times lately. I 
hope that my memory is not going to desert me 
entirely. 

Miss Towne came to me at recess to-day. 

“ Will you come into the library, Nellie?” she 
said. “ I want to tell you something.” 

So I followed her in, and she shut the door. 

“ I wanted to speak to you about Hadassah,” 
said she, turning to me. “ Do pray for her, 
Nellie. She has been reading the New Testa- 
ment ever since last year, when she went home 
with me, you remember, Christmas. And I am 
sure that she is convinced of the truth of Chris- 
tianity. Her mind is convinced, I mean. You 
know it takes Hadassah a long time to grasp an 
idea fully.” 

“Why, Miss Towne !” I said, astonished. “ I 
don’t think so, at all. She seems to see through 
an idea more easily than any of the other girls.” 


HAD ASS AH AND I. 


203 


“ You mean lessons?” said Miss Towne, look- 
ing at me thoughtfully. “ But those are not 
the ideas I mean, Nellie. I mean religious 
ideas. Don’t you think that there is such a 
thing as a quickened religious comprehension of 
spiritual ideas? I do, and I do not think that 
Hadassah has that yet. The vail that Paul tells 
us is upon the heart of Israel when the Old Tes- 
tament is read is still upon Hadassah, I think; 
but you know that Paul tells us, furthermore, 
that when they shall turn to the Lord the vail 
shall be taken away. And I think that Hadassah 
is very near to that time. Pray for her, Nellie.” 

And then the school-bell rang, and I hurried 
away. 

Now I do not mean to say that I should not 
be glad to have Hadassah become a Christian, 
but if I had said to Miss Towne just what I felt 
it would have been this: “ I wish you wouldn’t 
bother me about Hadassah. She’s the plague 
of my life ! ” 

And I felt more than ever like saying it just 
as school closed. Principal Thorn had made out 
our reports, and he handed around the cards. 
I generally hold my breath during that opera- 
tion. I’m all of a tremble till I see that final 
column on the card, entitled “ Rank in Class.” 


204 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

But, O ! when that card was laid on my desk, 
and my eye fell on that column, what did I see 
but an awful figure 2 staring at me from under 
the reports of the previous months. Hadassah 
had beaten me ! 

I looked over at her. Principal Thorn was 
just handing her her card. I saw Hadassah take 
it, give one look, jump a little, and look so glad. 
That shows she is trying for that valedictory. 
I thought she was doing so before, but I wasn’t 
sure of it. Now I know. She shall not beat 
me again, if I can help it. 

I am afraid that I did not pray very heartily 
to-night for Hadassah. All I could think of 
when I prayed was that dreadful figure 2. 
Last year when I went to the synagogue with 
Hadassah I thought that I should never, never 
be jealous of her again. But I am, and no com- 
mand to “ prefer in honor one another ” seems 
to affect my feeling in the least. I saw a piece 
in the newspaper the other day in which it 
spoke of “ those whose mind’s vision is not lim- 
ited by the walls of the class-room, for the busy 
world has become theirs, and in it they exercise 
those virtues that lead to noblest living.” Well, 
may be sometimes I can afford to smile, too, at 
the strife that goes on within “ the walls of the 


HADASSAH AND /. 


205 


class-room,” and think I was foolish to care so 
much about being Number One, but I don’t feel 
so now. It’s a matter of vital importance to me. 

December 28. — Well, I beat Hadassah by one 
half of one per cent, this time. I had ninety- 
eight and a half per cent, and she had ninety- 
eight. Pretty close, but it made me Number 
One and her Number Two. I don’t believe I 
CQiild have enjoyed this Christmas vacation at 
all if I hadn’t regained my place at the head 
of the class before leaving school. My vacation 
isn’t any too cheerful as it is, for I’m spending 
most of it in a dentist’s chair, having my teeth 
punched and scraped, and hearing that abomina- 
ble little machine that the dentist runs with his 
foot come buzzing into my mouth. Why weren’t 
teeth made to last, the way the rest of the bones 
are? Grandma says that may be our teeth 
would last longer if we took better care of them. 
That’s a hint to me to take my tooth-brush to 
school so that I can use it after lunch at noon. 
But that isn’t convenient. 

On the whole, I believe I’m thankful that 
none of my bones but my teeth give out. It 
would be dreadful to have to be always patch- 
ing up bones. 


2o6 number one, or number two? 

January 29. — Hadassah made a mighty effort 
and climbed one per cent, above nie. She is 
Number One. O, vexation ! 

I don’t think that Miss Towne need be so 
very hopeful about Hadassah. I don’t see any 
change in her, or any hope of any. She studies 
just as soberly as usual, and doesn’t seem to 
think of any thing outside of lessons. And yet 
every day I can see Miss Towne look at Hadas- 
sah as eagerly as though expecting to find some 
great and wonderful change in her. Well, it’s 
according to people’s faith, I suppose — the an- 
swer, I mean — but I should think Miss Towne 
would get discouraged praying. 

February 27. — Report cards have come again, 
and fortune smiles, and I am Number One. 
Two per cent, ahead of Hadassah ! Tm aston- 
ished that she hasn’t done better this last 
month. But I’ve noticed two or three times 
that she has seemed absent-minded in the class. 
She was reading Hebrew at her desk yesterday. 

March 9. — My bother with my head came to 
a climax last Friday. At least, I hope it did, and 
that nothing worse is in store for me. I don’t 
know when I have felt so mortified. 


HA DA SS AH AND /. 


207 


We had to give recitations — “ speak pieces,” 
as the girls used to say in the grades — and I 
thought, of course, that Principal Thorn would 
hear us the way he always does. But he was 
called away by something or other, I do not know 
what, and so Professor Hazelton took charge of 
us and of the middle class, too. The middlers 
were all elated, for they did not have to do any 
thing but sit still and listen to the seniors, the 
folding-doors being opened between the two 
rooms. 

Well, I always am bashful. May be I have 
written that before in this journal. But it’s true, 
no matter how many times I write it, and my 
trouble with my head does not help it any. And, 
being bashful, the addition of fifty or more pair 
of eyes *to my usual audience of seniors must 
have upset me, I suppose. 

I had learned Whittier’s “ River Path ” to 
recite. At least, I supposed that I had learned 
it. I did not have any book there, only a crum- 
pled copy of the poem scribbled off with a pen- 
cil. And I handed that copy to Nina and marched 
forward when my name was called. 

I began my recitation, and went bravely on for 
about a dozen lines ; and then I stopped. 

It became plain to my mind that I had under- 


2o8 number one, or number two? 

taken to learn too long a thing for me to recite 
facing those eyes. Why hadn’t I kept that copy 
in my hand ? Poor Nina was glaring at the paper, 
trying with all her might to make out my hi- 
eroglyphics. Fifty middlers and my whole senior 
class were looking at me in amazement. (Mid- 
dlers chiefly amazed, for was not that creature 
standing by the desk the one who was usually 
at the head of the seniors, and the one who 
was generally expected to be valedictorian ? 
What ailed her? Who ever saw her act so be- 
fore ?) 

I didn’t know what ailed myself, excepting I 
had an idea that I had suddenly become a fool. 
I turned to Professor Hazelton and said, “ I can- 
not remember it.” 

He bowed politely, without a particle of re- 
proof in his manner, and I went to my seat ; and 
there I sat enduring agonies of mortification till 
the gong sounded and school was over. 

How could I have done such a thing? Hadn’t 
I studied those words over and over again every 
evening as I walked in the garden ? Hadn’t I 
said that poem over to myself without any words 
before me ? And then to break down ! 

Inez flew to me the minute school was over. 

“You poor child ! ” she cried, as she plumped 


HADASSAH AND I. 


209 


herself down in half my seat. “ O, Nellie, I’m 
so sorry for you ! ” 

And I think she was, really. 

Nina came along with a doleful face. 

“ I ought to have prompted you,” she said, in 
a distressed way, “ but you came back in such a 
hurry I—” 

“ Never mind,” I answered as cheerfully as I 
could. “ It was not your fault. I ought to have 
had a decently written copy for you.” 

And Nina looked relieved. I don’t know 
whether she expected that I would blame her 
or not. But of course it was not her fault at 
all. 

A thought came to me. I looked up. Pro- 
fessor Hazelton’s coat was just vanishing out the 
door and the hall was full of girls. But it wouldn’t 
do to wait, and I left Inez staring while I rushed 
out into the hall after Professor Hazelton. I had 
to screw up my courage a good deal to do it, for 
I am dreadfully afraid of him, he is so tall and 
polite and stiff. 

But I was desperate over losing so many credits 
and over disgracing myself in such a way, and so 
I jumped at him and astonished us both. 

“ Professor Hazelton,” I gasped. 

He stopped and waited for me to go on. 

14 


210 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

I was all in a shake, but I managed to get 
through with my speech. 

“ Will you hear me say that thing over again?” I 
said. ‘‘ I know it, but I couldn’t say it some way, 
with them all looking.” 

And I stopped. I couldn’t have said another 
word, anyway, and if ever a thief waiting for sen- 
tence felt worse — 

Professor Hazelton looked at me, and I looked 
at his black eyes and pointed beard and white 
nose, and I did wish he would hurry and answer. 
And he did at last. 

“ I have no doubt you know it, Nellie,” he said, 
in his kindest, most gracious way ; the way he 
doesn’t use very often. “ I have not time to hear 
you recite again, but you shall not lose a single 
credit.” 

And he smiled and bowed and was gone, while 
I was meditating falling down at his very-well- 
blacked boots out of sheer gratitude. Bless him ! 
It was well he did go, for I was so overjoyed about 
those credits I don’t know what I should have 
done if he hadn’t. As it was, I held in till after 
we had started home in the buggy, and then I 
cried all the way. 

But first, after Professor Hazelton left me, I 
went back to our Chorus Club, that was just 


HADASSAH AND I. 


211 


beginning to practice, the way we always do 
after school Monday and Friday nights. 

But I don’t know what Hadassah would say 
if she knew that I am to stand equal with her for 
that Friday afternoon’s performance. For she 
recited Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” (isn’t it 
Wordsworth’s?) perfectly, and I made a dunce 
of myself. Anyway, hereafter I will confine my 
selections to poems of three stanzas, if I am 
going to blunder so. 

I am really glad that Professor Hazelton did 
not hear me say that poem over again, for I am 
afraid that I was too excited to remember it any- 
way. It was good in him to take my word for 
it. I did not tell any one what he said about my 
not losing any credits. I felt ashamed to have 
credits given to me that way, but then I really 
and truly had tried to study that thing. I be- 
lieve I shall always hate that poem of Whittier’s 
hereafter. 

I told ma about my performance, of course, 
and she said that just as likely as not Professor 
Hazelton was in some such fix sometime himself 
when he was a boy, and that is what made him 
so good to me. But I cannot imagine Pro- 
fessor Hazelton feeling so like a fool as I did 
Friday. 


212 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

March 14. — I was very early at school to-day. 
When I went in there was no one there but Miss 
Towne and Hadassah. I could see that they had 
both been crying. 

I felt rather awkward, and I only stopped to 
put my books in my desk and was going straight 
out again when Miss Towne called me. 

“ Come here, Nellie,” she said. 

So I went, of course. She drew me up to the 
seat where she and Hadassah were sitting to- 
gether. 

“ I want to tell you,” she said, “ that our 
prayers have been answered, Nellie. Hadassah 
thinks that she has found the Lord Jesus for her 
Saviour.” 

Hadassah looked up at me. 

“Have you been praying for me, too?” she 
asked, looking at me. 

“ I asked Nellie to pray for you months ago, 
Hadassah,” said Miss Towne. “ I know she did 
so.” 

And Hadassah, the proud Hadassah that I 
never before saw seem to care for any one, sprang 
up out of her seat, and put her arms around me 
and kissed me. 

Miss Towne rose up and put me in her place. 

“ I must go,” she said, looking at her watch. 


HABASSAH AND I. 


213 


“ Nellie, 1 want you to help Hadassah on. You 
have been a little longer in the way than she 
has.” 

“ Did you ever see such a woman ? ” said Ha- 
dassah, as Miss Towne vanished out of the door. 
“ She’s a real Christian, isn’t she ? Of course, I 
suppose the rest mean to be real, but she has a 
way of showing it.” 

Well, the girls began to come in then, and I 
went to my desk. 

“What were you two sitting together for ? ” 
whispered Nina le Page, as she leaned over from 
her desk. “ I thought you hated each other. 
You looked so, Nellie, anyway, last time the 
report cards came around,” and Nina laughed 
mischievously. 

But I answered nothing. I felt as though I 
had deceived both Hadassah and Miss Towne. 
For I have not prayed for Hadassah in the way 
they both seem to think. I have prayed two or 
three little prayers, but I don’t believe I cared 
so very much whether they were answered or not. 
I have been too busy thinking about the valedic- 
tory to think about souls. That’s just what it 
all amounts to. O, Nellie Merritt, what do you 
suppose that Mr. Gardner would say to you if he 
knew all ? There is one saying of Christ that I am 


2 14 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

afraid would apply to me : “ The cares of this world 
. . . choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.” 

March i8. — I told Miss Towne the truth to- 
day. I was at her desk in the junior room. It 
amuses me to see how reverently the juniors look 
at me when I go in there. I wonder if I used to 
think that seniors were wonderful people. 

Well, the last admiring junior had passed out, 
and Miss Towne had shown me about that 
example in trigonometry that I came to her 
about, and then she turned to me and said : 
“ How joyful it is about Hadassah, isn’t it, 
Nellie? I do really believe that she is a 
Christian. She isn’t the kind of a girl to tell her 
feelings all out beforehand, the way some would, 
you know, but I have thought she was seeking 
the light for some time. She used to get her 
Hebrew Bible and sit down with a New Testa- 
ment sometimes when she was at our house, and 
compare the two. And I am sure she is in the 
light now. I think we have great cause for thank- 
fulness, Nellie.” 

“ You have,” I said, bluntly. “ I don’t think 
that I have had any part in it.” 

“Didn’t you pray for her?” asked Miss 
Towne, looking surprised. 


HADASSAff AND /. 


215 


I don’t know,” I answered. “ I said some 
words, sometimes, but I am afraid I didn’t mean 
them much, Miss Towne.” 

And then I astonished myself very much by 
breaking down crying. 

“ Why, my dear child ! ” said she, and she put 
one arm around me and waited till I stopped, 
which I did pretty soon, for I was a good deal 
ashamed of myself. 

“ I am afraid you are working too hard,” said 
Miss Towne, kindly, after I became quiet. “ I 
didn’t know you had ‘ nerves,’ Nellie.” 

“I’m cross and out of sorts all the time,” I 
said, wiping my eyes, “ and I try to be better, 
but I’m not, Miss Towne.” 

I felt very much like crying again, but I 
wouldn’t. 

“Poor child!” said Miss Towne again, and 
she reached over and drew a little book out of 
the row on her desk. It was a scrap-book of 
hers, containing clippings from newspapers. 

“ There is a little bit of a poem in here that 
expresses just what Christians feel once in awhile, 
I think, Nellie,” said Miss Towne, turning over 
the leaves till she came to the back part of 
the book. “ I cut the poem out of a paper. 
George Herbert was the writer of it, so the paper 


2i6 number one, or number TIVO? 


said, but I have not been able to find it in my 
copy of Herbert’s poems. It may have been by 
him, however. Whether Herbert wrote it or not, 
it is good,” and Miss Towne read it aloud tome. 
I copied it afterward, and here it is : 

Said I Not So} 

“ Said I not so, that I would sin no more ? 

Witness, my God, I did ! 

Yet I am run again upon the score. 

My faults cannot be hid. 

“ What shall I do } Make vows and break them still } 
’Twill be but labor lost ; 

My good cannot prevail against mine ill. 

The business will be crost. 

“ O, say not so ; thou canst not tell what strength 
Thy God may give thee at the length ; 

Renew thy vows, and if thou keep the last. 

Thy God will pardon all that’s past. 

Vow while thou canst ; while thou canst vow thou mayest. 
Perhaps perform it when thou thinkest least. 

“ Thy God hath not denied thee all. 

Whilst he permits thee but to call. 

Call to thy God for grace to keep 

Thy vows ; and if thou break them, weep. 

“ Weep for thy broken vows, and vow again ; 

Vows made with tears 
Cannot be still in vain. 

Then once again 
I vow to mend my ways : 

Lord, say Amen, 

And thine be all the praise ! ” 


HADASSAH AND /. 


217 

“ I think,” said Miss Towne, after a pause, 
“ that we do not, any of us, have as much faith 
as we ought to have about praying. It seems to 
be one of the things that Christians are longest 
learning. When I was visiting one of my uncles 
once I saw a little cousin of mine. He was only 
seven years old ; a very obliging, sympathetic 
little fellow. His father was a doctor, and Willie 
was so sorry for the sick folks that he used to 
want to send them his playthings as tokens of 
his sympathy. There was one woman in the 
place who had been sick quite awhile, and 
Willie wanted to send her a gray cotton ‘ horsie^ 
of his. So his father took it over there the next 
time he went to see the sick woman, and she was 
very glad to get the horse, for she had been feel- 
ing badly, and thought that no one cared if she 
was sick, and now she was sure that one little 
boy was sorry for her, anyway. 

“ But that little boy’s faith was what reminded 
me of him just now. I used to think, when I 
heard him talk, that I had less than lie. He had 
always been taught to tell every thing to God 
when he prayed, just as if he were talking to 
some dear friend on earth. And Willie always 
believed in his ‘ Papain heaven,’ as he called him, 
as much as in his papa on earth. 


2i8 number one, or number two? 

“Well, his mother told me that some years 
before I went there Willie’s father brought a 
young man to board in the house. Willie and 
this young Mr. Raymond became great friends. 

“ One day Mr. Raymond started off for a long 
tramp over the hills. When he came back at 
night he brought with him a little red alder cane 
that he had found by the way on his walk. 
Willie liked the cane very much indeed. He 
thought he had never seen any thing so pretty, 
and he wished so much that he had one, too. 

“ Some time afterward Willie’s mother thought 
she heard him out in his playground. He had a 
piece of ground just at the side of the house 
where he played in the sand and built brick 
houses and thumped on an old boiler that he 
called his drum. His mother thought she heard 
him talking there, and she wondered who was 
with him, for there were no children living near 
by. So she stepped to the back door, and this 
is what she saw : 

“ Willie was kneeling down in the middle of 
his playground, and looking up at the sky, while 
he prayed this little prayer of his own : 

“ ‘ Dear Papa in heaven, please send me a 
little red cane. Please send me one just like 
Raymond’s, for Jesus’s sake. Amen.’ 


HADASSAH AND I. 


219 


“ Then he jumped up, and went to playing 
again just as happily as if he knew he would get 
what he asked for. 

“ When Willie’s father came home the mother 
told him what their little boy had prayed for, 
and the father said that he would go hunting on 
the hills, and try to find a young red alder-tree, 
and make Willie a cane like Raymond’s. So the 
father started out and tramped miles around on 
the hills, but no young alder-tree came in sight. 

“ At last he came home and went to see Mr. 
Raymond, who was now boarding at another 
place. 

“ The father told Mr. Raymond how much 
Willie had wanted a red cane, and offered to buy 
the one that had been found. But Mr. Raymond 
said that he did not want the cane, it was of no 
use to him, and Willie could have it as well as not. 

“ So Willie’s father took the cane and brought 
it home. By that time it was dark, and Willie 
had gone to bed, so his father put the red cane 
down in the middle of the playground where 
the little boy had prayed. 

“ Early next morning Willie ran out to his 
playground. 

“ There, to his great joy, lay the much-longed- 
for cane. 


2 20 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“ ‘ I knew Papa in heaven would send it,’ said 
he. And he picked it up and ran in to show it 
to his mother.” 

“ But it seems to me,” I said, as Miss Towne 
had ended her story, “ that it was Willie’s papa 
on earth instead of his ‘ Papa in heaven ’ who 
answered that prayer.” 

“ Do you think so?” said Miss Towne, smil- 
ing. “ And yet it seems to me that the Father 
in heaven undoubtedly made the little boy’s 
mother go to the door in time to hear that 
prayer so that she might see that it was answered. 
And who made Mr. Raymond willing to give up 
that cane when no other like it could be found ? 
I think the Father in heaven sent the answer, 
Nellie, and the little boy’s faith was not mis- 
placed. I don’t think that any of us are apt to 
have too much faith. If we had more of it we 
should see more of our prayers answered. But 
we, in our thoughts at least, draw a line and say 
of our prayers : ‘ I shall get answers to such and 
such ones, and these other things that I ask for 
I shall be surprised to have given me.’ 

“ And we pray for certain people, and all the 
time we say to ourselves : ‘ They will never come 
to Christ. They are too far away from him.’ 

“ I tell you, Nellie, a good many of us ought 


HADASSAH AND /. 


221 


to learn to put into our prayers what Jeremiah 
did into his : ‘ Ah, Lord God ! there is nothing 
too hard for thee.’ ” 

March 24. — “ What do you think ! ” said Della 
to me. “ I saw Hadassah come into church yes- 
terday with Miss Towne, and I heard that Ha- 
dassah is going to join the church. Do you 
believe it ? ” 

“ I should not be surprised,” I said. 

Hadassah had talked with me a good deal 
after that first morning. 

“ Do you know,” said she to me one day when 
we were alone, “ I do not believe I should ever 
have become a Christian if it hadn’t been for 
Miss Towne. You have no idea how kind that 
woman has been to me, and how strange it 
seemed to me to go into a family like hers that 
Christmas and to hear Christ prayed to. I sup- 
pose you will think that I was real heathen, 
Nellie, but, really and truly, I never heard the 
Saviour prayed to before that morning when 
Miss Towne’s father did it. And he prayed for 
me, Nellie. I felt queerest about that. I can 
remember just what the old man said. It was: 
‘ And now, O blessed Christ, we pray thee for the 
new friend who has come among us. She is one 


22 2 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

of thine ancient people, O Lord, one of the race 
from which thou, after the flesh, didst come. Lord, 
there were Jewish maidens who believed in thee 
and who owned thee as the Messiah when thou 
didst walk Judea’s hills. Grant, we pray thee, 
to reveal thyself to this dear child.’ 

“ I didn’t see why Mr. Towne should care, 
and if he hadn’t been so old and feeble I should 
have objected to his calling me ‘ this dear child.’ 
But I couldn’t feel angry with an old man like 
him. 

“Well, Miss Towne never said any thing to 
me about that prayer, but when we all rose up 
from our knees she went out of the room sud- 
denly, but not so quickly that I didn’t see her 
eyes full of tears. So I wondered if Miss Towne 
cared, too, and I began to wish I hadn’t ac- 
cepted any invitation to Christmas, because I 
didn’t want to be talked to about the Jews all 
the time. 

“ But not another word did I hear. The days 
went by, and Miss Towne and I shopped and 
helped trim the house for Christmas, and Mrs. 
Towne let me cook with her in the kitchen, and 
it was real fun ! She and Miss Towne and I made 
fruit-cake and doughnuts and pies. And every 
morning and every night those Townes had 


HADASSAH AND /. 


223 


prayers, and every one in the house seemed to 
read the Bible every day. I wasn’t going to be 
outdone, so I unpacked my Hebrew Bible — for 
I had all my belongings with me — that’s the ad- 
vantage of living in a trunk in a boarding-house, 
Nellie — and I kept that Bible conspicuously on 
the table in my half of the room. Miss Towne 
and I had the same room then, because I found 
out that there were so many relatives coming for 
Christmas that the rooms would be full. Miss 
Towne told me that I might as well have a sep- 
arate room. She didn’t mean to put any one in 
with me. But I told her I wouldn’t have it. I 
was bound I’d be crowded if anybody was. And 
so we roomed together. Miss Towne had one 
half the room and I the other. There was a 
worn seam in the carpet that divided it off just 
right. Miss Towne kept her Bible on her stand, 
and I guess I read more in my Bible than I had 
in a year before because I saw Miss Towne read 
in hers every day. 

“ Christmas the house was full, and every body 
went to church. I went, too, and the sermon 
was about that text in Micah : ‘ But thou, Beth- 
lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among 
the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he 
come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel ; 


2 24 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

whose goings forth have been from of old, from 
everlasting.’ 

“ Of course, I remembered reading that in 
Micah, but I never had thought of its meaning 
the Messiah. The minister said it did, though, 
and he really made it seem very probable, I 
thought. 

“ Then we all went home to dinner, and, of 
course, there was a Christmas-tree, and there 
were ever so many presents. It was very pleas- 
ant, and I enjoyed every thing, for Miss Towne 
took pains that I should. 

“Well, it was the Sunday before vacation was 
over that I found time at last to take my Bible 
and sit down in my room and look up that text 
in Micah. I wanted to see how it looked in my 
Bible. 

“ Miss Towne came in for something while I 
was reading. 

“ She saw what I was doing, and said : ‘ How 
I wish I could read Hebrew, Hadassah ! ’ 

“‘Do you?' I said. ‘Why, I’ll teach you. 
I’d like to.’ 

“ Miss Towne laughed. 

‘“I’m afraid you would find me a poor schol- 
ar,’ she said. ‘ I have so little time for study.’ 

“ Then she asked me what I was reading, and 


HADASSAH AND /. 


225 


I told her about that text in Micah, and she sat 
down with me and talked over that minister’s 
sermon. And she told me how she was con- 
verted herself, Nellie. And at last she took a 
little New Testament out of a drawer and gave 
the book to me, and made me promise to 
read it, and in every place where it says, ‘ This 
was done that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken by the prophet,’ or something meaning 
the same as that, I was to look up what proph- 
ecy was referred to in my Hebrew Bible. 

“ Well, I wouldn’t have promised any one but 
Miss Towne. I didn’t like to tell her I wouldn’t 
do it after she had been so kind to me and taken 
me to her home. I hadn’t been in any home 
before for years. A boarding-house isn’t much 
like a home, you know. 

Of course, I kept my promise. I read that 
little New Testament through, and I studied my 
Hebrew Bible and I compared the two, and I 
thought and thought. Why, I never had heard 
of so many prophecies being fulfilled. I did not 
at all want to believe that Christ was our Mes- 
siah, but one day I read something in Daniel 
about Messiah’s being cut off, ‘ but not for him- 
self.’ And I remembered that Christ also died 

‘ not for himself.’ 

15 


2 26 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“And I read the New Testament again. I 
read Matthew and Mark and Luke and John over 
and over and over. And one day I was by myself 
in the boarding-house, in my room reading, and 
I was so sorely troubled about what I read of 
Christ that I rose up and stood, as the manner 
of Jews is when they pray, and I looked out of 
the window at the sky, and I said : ‘ O Eternal, 
thou God of my ancestors Abraham and Isaac 
and Jacob, God of all Israel, show me, I pray, 
whether the things I have read in this New Tes- 
tament are indeed true. Show me whether or 
not Christ is the Messiah.’ ” 

Hadassah was silent after telling me so much. 
She bent her head on her hand. She was nearly 
crying again. 

“ He did show you ? ” I said. 

“Yes,” said Hadassah ; “he showed me.” 

March 30. — “ There is such a thing as believ- 
ing that Christ is the Son of God and yet not 
trusting in him for salvation, isn’t there?” 

That was a question that Mr. Gardner put to 
our Sabbath-school class yesterday. I suppose 
that was what is called a “ leading question,” 
since it showed what sort of an answer he ex- 
pected. And I believe that the teacher’s Lesson 


HADASSAH AND /. 


227 


Helps say that teachers ought not to ask lead- 
ing questions ” as a usual thing. 

But his question led back to more things than 
he knew. 

My mind flew back to Hadassah. I suppose 
— indeed, I know — that a Jew, or any one else, 
for that matter, might be perfectly convinced, 
so far as head-belief goes, that Jesus Christ is 
Israel’s Messiah, and yet might never believe 
with the heart, might never be converted, might 
never be saved. And I think such a mistake as 
that would be saddest of all. To believe that 
the Physician has the remedy and yet never to 
secure it for one’s own soul-sickness ; to call him 
the “ Burden-bearer,” and yet never to lay on 
him the load of one’s own sins ; what is that 
but mocking one’s own greatest need? 

But I do not believe that Hadassah has stopped 
short. I think she knows what it is to feel in 
her soul that Christ has forgiven her her sins. 
Do I not know from my own experience that 
such a thing is possible? Shall I ever forget 
that night when, wearied with months of soul- 
strife, I prayed almost in despair, and cried out : 
“Lord, I can do nothing for myself; nothing! 
I have tried again and again. Lord Christ, for- 
give me my sins. Take from me this burden. 


2 28 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

and I will acknowledge before the world what 
thou hast done for me.” 

Shall I ever forget the answer of peace that 
came to me? It was like a spoken word of for- 
giveness, and my burden was gone. And did I 
not see in Hadassah’s face the same peace? I 
believe that she knows what it is to truly trust 
in Christ for salvation. 

“ O Eternal our God ! cause us to rejoice in 
the coming of thy servant Elijah, the prophet, 
and in the kingdom of the house of David thy 
anointed. May he come speedily and gladden 
our hearts. Suffer no stranger to sit on his 
throne, nor any others to inherit his glory : for by 
thy holy name hast thou sworn unto him that his 
lamp should never be extinguished. Blessed art 
thou, O Eternal! the shield of David! ” 

“ That is one of the ‘ blessings ’ of our service,” 
said Hadassah to me the other day, as she 
pointed it out in a book that she had taken from 
her desk. 

“So they pray for Elijah’s coming still?” I 
asked, after I had read what she indicated. 

“Yes,” said Hadassah. “ Don’t you remember 
how Malachi ends? ‘Behold, I will send you 
Elijah the prophet before the coming of the 
great and dreadful day of the Lord : and he shall 


HADASSAH AND I. 


229 


turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and 
the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I 
come and smite the earth with a curse.” 

“Christ said that John was Elias,” said I. 
“Don’t you remember? ‘For all the prophets 
and the law prophesied until John. And if ye 
will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to 
come.’ ” 

“Yes,” said Hadassah, slowly, “ I remember. 
But you see, the trouble with my people is, they 
will not receive it. I used to think that it did 
not much matter what people believed in regard 
to religious things. Father said it did not. He 
says so still, but now I see that he is mistaken. 
It does matter a great deal. It is a terrible 
thing not to be right in one’s belief.” 

Hadassah looked ve^y sorrowful when she said 
that. And I did not know what to say to her. 
I wondered if I should have been as good as she 
is if I had been brought up the way she has. I 
am thankful I was not. I never knew how 
thankful I ought to be for my Christian home 
and religious training till I met Hadassah, and 
knew something of her life and the darkness in 
which she groped for light. 

I told grandma what Hadassah said, and 
grandma answered : “ The same Lord who could 


230 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Open Hadassah’s eyes can open those of all her 
race.” 

There, now! Why couldn’t I have thought of 
something like that to tell Hadassah? To be 
sure she knows it already, but then it does one 
good to be reminded of things occasionally. 

As I had not said any thing to Hadassah, I 
got grandma to write her a letter. Grandma 
writes beautiful letters. She always did. I can re- 
member them when I was a little tot, and she 
was away from our house. Besides, I have seen 
a good many of her letters since, and I think 
grandma has a real talent for comforting people. 

She did write a letter to Hadassah. I did not 
see but a few lines of it, but those were a prom- 
ise from the Book of Jeremiah : 

“ ‘ Thus saith the Lord ; If heaven above can 
be measured, and the foundations of the earth 
searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the 
seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith 
the Lord.’ ” 

April 2. — “ I am so tired.” 

That is what I keep saying to myself every 
day. 

It seems as if the next two months never 
would be gone. I suppose that after I leave 


HAD ASSAM AND 1. 


231 


school I shall sometimes wish that I could come 
back and study for a month or two, or may be a 
whole term. But, just now, two months seem 
interminable. I am coming to hate the sight of 
this school-room with its four windows, its fold- 
ing-doors, its rows of desks, its library in one 
corner, its globe in another, its blackboards and 
pointers, its maps and pictures, some of the last 
drawn by classes that have gone before us. 

Were the scholars of those classes as tired as I 
am, I wonder ? Did they look out of the win- 
dows and wish that school were done ? Did 
they twist around in their desks once in awhile 
and look at the clock ? Did they consider the 
sound of the gong for dismissal the pleasantest 
sound in the world ? Did they shut their eyes 
on the way going home from school because 
they w'ere so tired they could not even bear to 
look at the people and houses by the way? Did 
they take doses of quinine to keep themselves 
alive ? Did they study nights till their eyes 
would shut in spite of themselves? Did they 
then rush to a stationary wash-basin, turn on the 
water, rub their eyes well with the cold stuff, get 
their heads sopping wet, and rush back to the 
lamp to study again as long as they could keep 
awake? Did they dream of books o’ nights? 


232 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Did they wish there were no books in the world ? 
Did they mildly resolve that they would stick to 
studying and endure life a few months longer, 
anyhow? Did they make so stupid entries in 
their journals as this is? 

I do not know. I can easily see why that fel- 
low with red cheeks, who used to be a senior 
when I was a junior, died. But I’m not going 
to die, you old Journal, so don’t be alarmed. This 
is only a series of remarks that you needn’t pay 
the slightest attention to, unless you’re ashamed 
to have them on your pages. And I really do 
not see how you can help that very well. You 
shouldn’t have belonged to such a person as I 
am, so foolish, so perfectly idiotic. I don’t be- 
lieve that another girl in school writes such 
things in her journal as I do. 

And yet I know that some of the scholars in 
those classes that have gone before us didn’t 
have so fearfully hard times. Don’t I remember 
when I was a junior seeing one of the senior 
girls making tatting? What time have I for 
tatting or crocheting, now that I am a senior? 
Evidently that girl did not stand very high in 
her class. And do I not remember hearing of one 
graduate that did not get one single, solitary 
credit in a certain examination in algebra ? If 


HADASSAII AND I. 


233 


scholars don’t try to study I suppose they have 
time enough, and don’t feel as tired as I do. 

Some of our class had a picnic the other day. 
They invited me, but I didn’t go. No strength 
to waste on picnics if I’m going to be valedic- 
torian. And I’m sure I think that I deserve 
to be that important personage, after all this 
fuss. 

I believe that I am a real bore at home, I talk 
so much about school affairs. Bessie told me 
that she was “ awfully tired ” of my talk the 
other day. Ma don’t say any such thing. She’d 
be resigned if I talked school affairs from morn- 
ing to night. 

But I can’t think of any thing else to talk 
about. Bessie says she shouldn’t think I thought 
that any body else beside myself had any thing 
to do. Well, I suppose there is such a thing as 
being selfish in one’s talk. I know I have seen 
persons who would sit down and talk by the 
hour about themselves, their plans, their pros- 
pects, their aspirations, until I was ready to 
groan in weariness. I don’t do exactly so ego- 
tistical a thing as to talk about myself like that, 
but I guess I can write enough about myself. 
My writing to-night seems to be mostly about 
myself. I guess I had better stop writing, and 


2 34 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

go to studying, if I want to know any thing 
about my lessons. 

But just wait till Bessie is in the high-school, 
and then see if she does not talk a good deal 
about what she experiences. Til remember to 
remind her then that I am awfully tired ” of 
her conversation. 

Now if my eyes are not beginning to get 
sleepy! Why, I mustn’t go to bed for hours yet. 
I’ll go wash the sleep off. 

April lo. — I hate to think it of Hadassah, but, 
really, I do not see how she can be a Christian. 
I did believe in her, but I don’t any more, if she 
will try to deceive that way, just for five credits. 

This is what happened. Last Monday Miss 
Brown, who comes into the senior class to hear 
our rhetoric lessons, told us that she wanted us 
to write a story apiece for our rhetoric exercise 
for Thursday. The stories were to be ghost 
stories, or those involving some element of the 
supernatural. It was a queer idea of Miss Brown, 
but she is always having some odd plan for test- 
ing our ability to write. 

Well, of course, we all declaredVith one voice 
that we couldn’t do any such thing, but then we 
had to try. I did my best, but the thing I pro- 


HADASSAH AND I. 


235 


duced was so utterly improbable that when I 
read it out loud yesterday in the class I heard 
a sarcastic cough from Sam River’s corner, and 
I knew I hadn’t done as well as I sometimes do 
in compositions. 

Only half a dozen of the class had written 
any thing, so Miss Brown said she would give 
them till to-day to write their stories. 

Hadassah was one of those who were not pre- 
pared yesterday, so I flattered myself that I’d 
gained more credits than she had, anyway. 

But this afternoon, just as school opened, in 
came Miss Brown as usual, and the first thing she 
did was to call for the reading of those stories. 
None of those read amounted to any thing till 
Hadassah’s name was called. Then she stood 
up at her desk, as all the others had at theirs, 
and she read the queerest, funniest supernatural 
sort of a story that could be imagined. It was 
a very well-written thing, and the scholars laughed 
and enjoyed it very much. Miss Brown laughed 
too. 

I laughed, of course. I couldn’t help it. And 
yet it did not seem to me that Hadassah wrote 
that. I know she can write very well ; her com- 
positions are almost always very good, but I did 
not believe that she could write as well as that. 


236 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Besides, the story seemed familiar to me. Here 
and there were little things that I remembered, 
or thought I did. 

And as I sat there, wondering and trying to 
think, there dawned on me the remembrance of 
a rainy day, and an old farm-house, and a garret 
in that house, and a girl in the garret, sitting on 
the floor beside a pile of old, musty magazines, 
and reading a story out of one of them. That was 
Uncle John’s farm-house, and Aunt Lavinia’s 
garret and magazines, and the girl who sat on 
that floor reading a story out of the old maga- 
zines was myself, years and years ago. And the 
story that Hadassah read to-day in school and 
tried to palm off on Miss Brown as original was 
the one I read in the garret. To act a lie de- 
liberately for five credits! I did believe that 
Hadassah was a Christian. I thought she was 
honest and sincere, but I don’t think so any 
more. Of course, I wouldn’t tell any body any 
thing about it, though. But I know one thing, I 
sha’n’t associate with Hadassah any more. I 
don’t believe in going with such people. 

How shocked Miss Towne would be if she 
knew it. I believe that she would prefer hav- 
ing any one of the rest of us scholars sin to 
having Hadassah. I believe Miss Towne looks 


HADASSAH AND /. 


237 


upon her with a sort of “ brand-plucked-from- 
the-burning ” feeling, and would almost as soon 
suspect her own Christian honesty as Hadas- 
sah’s. But when I see dishonesty right before 
my own eyes I have to recognize it. “ Charity 
thinketh no evil,” I know, but this isn’t a case 
that charity can cover. 

April 13. — “ How is Hadassah? ” asked grand- 
ma. 

She was finishing some dolls’ stockings for 
Bessie, and I had just sat down to study. 

“ Pretty well, I guess,” I answered. 

“ Seems to me I haven’t heard you say much 
of any thing about her lately,” grandma went 
on, innocently, as she jerked her red yarn. “ Do 
you think she is growing in grace, Nellie, and 
trying to be a faithful Christian ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” I answered, impatiently. 

I had studiously refrained from mentioning 
Hadassah, because I had not meant to say any 
thing about that trouble. 

Grandma looked up surprised. “ Why, Nellie, 
aren’t you interested in her any more?” asked 
she. 

And then my temper burst forth. “I’m not 
usually interested in hypocrites,” I said, scorn- 


238 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TIVO? 

fully. “It’s just as I told you, grandma. I’ll 
never believe again that a Jew can be con- 
verted.” 

“ Do you limit the Holy One of Israel, child ? ” 
asked grandma, looking sternly at me. “ Is the 
Lord’s arm shortened that it cannot save? ” 

I did not answer. I had not meant to say 
any thing that would rouse grandma’s suspi- 
cions. She did not ask me any more questions 
then, though. She let me study in peace till 
supper-time, but afterward, when the dishes 
were washed, and I had taken my lamp, ready 
to go to my own room and study till midnight 
for the final examinations, grandma called me 
into her own room. 

“ Wait a minute, Nellie,” she said. “ I want 
you to tell me about Hadassah. I pray for her 
every night, and I don’t know what kind of a 
prayer to make to-night till you have told me 
about the child.” 

“ I don’t like to tell tales out of school,” I 
answered. 

“ Not to your grandma, when you know that 
she will never say a word about it to any human 
being?” asked grandmother. “Tell me, Nellie. 
I want to think what had best be done if she has 
been mistaken in thinking herself a Christian.” 


HADASSAH AND I, 


239 


So I told grandma in a hurry, for I wanted to 

go- 

“ There isn’t any Christianity in a girl who 
will act that way,” I ended, indignantly. “I’ll 
never believe in her again.” 

“Hush, child,” said grandmother. “‘Judge 
not, that ye be not judged.’ I can’t believe she 
would willfully sin in that way, though the poor 
girl has had no such training as you have.” 

At which remark I rushed angrily out of 
grandma’s room, caught up my lamp, and ran 
up stairs, where I am sitting this minute, trying 
to work off some of my feelings by writing this 
in my journal. Now that I have put things all 
down in black and white I hope I can take my 
books and study. I hate to become so excited. 
It distracts my mind so that I cannot fix it on 
my lessons. I think if grandma ought to be- 
lieve any body it’s her own grandchild. I should 
think from her talk that she cares more for Ha- 
dassah than she does for me. 

April 17. — Shall I ever learn not to misjudge 
people, even if they are my rivals and the evi- 
dence against them is pretty strong ? 

Ever since that day Hadassah “ cheated,” as 
I kept calling it indignantly to myself, I have 


240 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

kept away from her. I wasn’t going to charge 
her with her meanness. 

“ If she had a mind to act so she had better 
believe that I’m not going to follow her exam- 
ple, and get the valedictory by cheating.” 

That’s what I kept saying to myself. 

And all the time Hadassah never acted at all 
as though .she had done any thing wrong. She 
used to look at me in an innocent, perplexed 
sort of way that made me angry, and I would 
say to myself: “ What a hypocrite she is! She 
doesn’t know that I’ve found her out.” 

But I found out about things to-day. 

We were all eating lunch ; in fact, we were al- 
most through with that necessary job, when 
Della, who was sitting near me, suddenly called 
out to Hadassah. 

“ O,” said Della, “ wont you tell me how that 
story turned out, that sort of ghost story, Ha- 
dassah, that you read to us the other day ? Did 
the noises come up the register, or how was it ? 
I tried to tell my aunt that story yesterday, and 
I couldn’t finish it satisfactorily. What was the 
ending? She wanted me to find out.” 

So Hadassah explained. 

“ That’s an interesting thing,” said Principal 
Thorn. 


NADASSAH AND /. 


241 


He had stopped just back of us to wind up 
the clock. 

“ Where did you find it, Hadassah ? ” 

“Now,” said I to myself, “how can Hadas- 
sah get out of it ? She will tell a lie.” 

I listened breathlessly for her answer. 

“ In an old magazine,” said Hadassah, calmly 
peeling her apple. “ I don’t even know the 
name of it, the copy was so torn. But I found 
the thing in a waste-basket once, and I thought 
it was so funny that I saved it.” 

I drew a big breath as Principal Thorn walked 
off. But what made Hadassah pretend that 
day that it was hers ? 

“ Why,” I said, trying to speak carelessly, as 
I looked into my lunch-basket. “ Hadassah, 
didn’t you write that story yourself? ” 

“I?” exclaimed Hadassah, turning around to 
look at me in amazement. “Why, no! I hope 
you don’t have such an exalted idea of my 
brains as that. I never could have written it in 
the world.” 

■ “You wrote it off, then?” I said. “You 
read it that day from your owii handwriting.” 

“Why, yes; of course I did,” answered Ha- 
dassah. “ The scrap from that old magazine 

was too torn and soiled to show to Miss Brown. 

16 


242 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

I copied the whole thing and handed it in to 
her, asking her if I could read it to the class. 
I thought the scholars would enjoy it, and it was 
appropriate for our lesson, and I couldn’t write 
any thing original. I tried and found I couldn’t. I 
don’t see how you came to make such a mistake, 
Nellie. I thought that all the scholars understood. 

And then suddenly a light seemed to dawn 
on Hadassah’s bewildered mind, and she put 
down her basket and came over to me. Most 
of the lunches had been eaten, and the girls 
were gone. Della had just skipped away, so 
there was no one to hear Hadassah as she bent 
down and said, with tears actually in her eyes : 
“ Was that what made you treat me so, Nellie? 
Did you think I would do such a thing as to 
pretend that that story was mine f ” 

Hadassah looked so hurt, and so ready to cry, 
that I didn’t know what to say to her. 

“ But, you see, I didn’t hear Miss Brown or 
any body say a word about it,” I said, feeling 
puzzled and ashamed. “And I remembered 
reading the story once long ago, and — ” 

Hadassah stood still, looking at me. Her 
chin quivered a little, and she swallowed once or 
twice before she said : “ Why didn’t you come 
and ask me about it ? ” 


HAD ASS AH AND I. 


243 


Well, why didn’t I? Didn’t I find that verse 
in the Bible staring straight at me the other 
day : “ Moreover if thy brother trespass against 
thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and 
him alone : if he shall hear thee, thou hast 
gained thy brother.” 

And I did not try that way at all. 

So when Hadassah stood looking at me as if 
I had hurt her dreadfully, all I could do was to 
answer, tremblingly: “ O, I hated to believe it 
of you, truly I did, Hadassah ! But I didn’t 
see how it could be any other way.” 

“ Why, I thought, of course, that Miss Brown 
had told the class,” said Hadassah. “ I was 
late coming in, you know. I hope the other 
scholars don’t think that that story was mine.” 

And Hadassah and I “ made up ” on the spot. 

I have thought now how it all was. Miss 
Brown did not make any explanation that day, 
and Hadassah was not in at the beginning of the 
lesson, as she said. Professor Hazelton asked 
Hadassah that noon if she wouldn’t like to see a 
collection of beetles that he made when he was 
in Arizona, and, of course, she was delighted. 
And he took her and Miss Towne into one of 
the down-stairs rooms where he had put the 
beetles, and Hadassah and Miss Towne were so 


244 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

interested talking over the different specimens 
and listening to Professor Hazelton’s account of 
the places in which he found those beetles that 
Hadassah didn’t get back to the school-room till 
the rhetoric class had been begun for some time. 
But Miss Brown didn’t care for that as long as 
she knew the reason. And Hadassah thought 
that Miss Brown had explained to the class about 
her story before she came in, because Miss Brown 
had promised to do so. 

“ I’m glad you told me, Nellie. I’ll have it 
corrected,” said Hadassah. 

So when Miss Brown opened the rhetoric class 
to-day she said : “ Hadassah requests me to say 
that a week ago I forgot to make an explana- 
tion in regard to the story she read to the class. 
She did not know till to-day that any of the 
scholars thought the story original with her. It 
was not. It was from an old magazine. I prom- 
ised to make that explanation before the story 
was read, but I forgot to do so, and Hadassah 
was not here to remind me. I hope this expla- 
nation is satisfactory and we all understand just 
how it was.” 

This is all the excuse that Nellie Merritt could 
give to her grandmother to-night for the remarks 
made about Hadassah the other day. 


HADASSAII AND /. 


245 


Grandma listened to all I had to say, and when 
I was through she answered: “ I thought once 
that I needed a bit of Paul’s advice to the Church 
of Corinth. Maybe you need it, too, Nellie. I 
learned it years ago : ‘ Therefore judge nothing 
before the time, until the Lord come, who will 
both bring to light the hidden things of dark- 
ness, and will make manifest the counsels of the 
heart.’ ” 

Anyway, I know that Hadassah is a Christian 
now. I am more sure than I was before, for 
once she would have been so angry with me that 
she would have refused to explain any thing. 

April 20. — Hadassah is Number One again 
and I am Number Two. I never can be recon- 
ciled to any such division of numbers as that. 
Tm not going to waste any more time going out- 
doors during recess, and I’m not going to bother 
to eat any lunch noons, unless it is an apple that 
I can munch as I read. This arrangement will 
give me an hour and a quarter more time to 
study. I don’t know what ma will say about no 
lunch, but I’m going to go without it. What’s 
eating compared with one’s standing in the class ? 
Besides, I never have any appetite nowadays, 
anyway. 


246 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

The trigonometry examples are fearfully hard 
lately. I spent three hours Saturday over one 
of them. I always become so mixed up before 
I get through with one that I don’t know 
whether I have the right answer or not when I’m 
done. I don’t think that MissTowne need give 
us such long ones. 

To-day I was so worried over mine that I asked 
Nettie Davis if she wouldn’t let me look over 
hers and see if mine were right. Tve asked her 
two or three times lately. Nettie and half a 
dozen other girls do their examples together 
and get the same answers, and they’re pretty 
sure to be correct, because some one or other 
of the girls will see the mistakes. I can’t stay 
after school to work with the girls, and so I do 
my examples by myself and get all muddled be- 
fore I finish, and sometimes my answers are right 
and sometimes they are wrong. 

I hated to ask Nettie again, but there wasn’t 
time to do any thing else. / 

Nettie hesitated a little. I suppose she thought 
I was asking too many favors. 

But Hadassah had overheard, and she spoke 
from her seat. 

“ O, let her have them, Nettie,” she said. 

And so I obtained them through my rival’s 


HADASSAH AND /. 


247 


intercession, and they helped me make a perfect 
recitation, for I found that one of mine was 
wrong. 

But I wont ask help again from any body. 
I’m almost sure that Nettie would rather Ha- 
dassah should be Number One than I. I’m 
not going to any one on Hadassah’s side 
again, not if I make myself sick studying. I 
don’t see why I can’t be helped sometimes, 
though, as well as some of the rest of the schol- 
ars. There isn’t a day that passes in which I 
don’t teach half a dozen girls their Cicero lesson 
or help them over Shakespeare. 

April 24. — We have compositions almost al- 
ways Fridays. Miss Towne comes in and gives 
us a kind of historical-political lecture for half 
an hour. We are expected to take down notes 
as well as we can, and we have the rest of the 
afternoon to write our notes out correctly. 

She has been giving us lectures on the differ- 
ent countries in Europe and their present condi- 
tion. To-day it was Russia, and Miss Towne 
brought something in about Bessarabia. I never 
heard of that country before, but Miss Towne 
pointed it out for us on the map. Bessarabia is 
down in that little angle made by the Black Sea 


248 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

and one of the mouths of the Danube River. 
Miss Towne says that Bessarabia used to be part 
of Russia, but after the Crimean War it became 
part of Turkey. Then, after another war, it be- 
came part of Russia again, as it is now. 

But one thing that Miss Towne told us about 
that country was ever so interesting to Hadassah. 
She had never heard of it before. It was about 
the “ National Jewish Society of the New Testa- 
ment.” 

Miss Towne said that in 1880 there was a Jew 
named Joseph Rabinowitz who tried to have the 
Bessarabian Jews adopt agriculture and find 
pleasant homes for themselves. But in 1882 
there was a great persecution of the Jews in 
southern Russia, and nothing there seemed to 
be safe for them. 

So this man Rabinowitz began to think about 
going to Palestine. He went there himself to 
examine the country and see if it could be care- 
fully cultivated, and while there, in some way. 
Miss Towne did not know just how, he came to 
the conclusion that the land itself gave proof to 
him that Jesus did live in it, and Rabinowitz 
went back to Bessarabia and astonished all the 
Jews there by preaching to them his belief that 
Jesus Christ was divine. More than two hun- 


HAD ASSAM AND I. 


249 


dred families were turned to believe as Rabino- 
witz did. Miss Towne said that it seems a good 
deal like the actions of Martin Luther in not 
coming fully out from the Romish Church. He 
tried to reform that, and Rabinowitz had the 
same idea in regard to the Jewish Church. Miss 
Towne said that Rabinowitz said: “We Jews 
who have come into the full vision of Jesus 
Christ, and now feel the power of his Spirit, 
have not come to the great light through any 
general indoctrination from without. No ; we 
have looked deeply into the Old and New Tes- 
taments, and we have found that God takes no 
pleasure in the death of the sinner, and that he 
loves his people Israel, and is willing to save 
them. Our reflection has become stirred by the 
miracles of Jesus. We see in them the evi- 
dences of his divinity and the proofs of his love 
toward us. We have come to look at our Broth- 
er Jesus as the Messiah, and to find in him our 
only hope of salvation.” 

After telling us that the rallying cry of all the 
Jews who share the faith of Rabinowitz is, “ The 
key of the Holy Land lies in the hand of our 
Brother Jesus,” Miss Towne passed on to other 
matters connected with the history of Russia, 
and nothing more was said of the Jews. But I 


250 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

am afraid that Hadassah’s composition suffered, 
for I don’t think that she heard a thing after that. 
She sat looking at Miss Towne and never taking 
a note. 

After school I saw her standing in the hall 
talking with Miss Towne. 

“O,” Hadassah was saying, as I came near, 
“do you think that it will spread, Miss Towne? 
Do you think that the Jews will believe in 
Christ ? ” 

Hadassah’s eyes were big with excitement, 
and she stood looking eagerly at Miss Towne for 
an answer. 

“ I hope so,” said Miss Towne. “ Rabbi Rabin- 
owitz seems to be trying to lead them to do so, 
and he says that night after night the Jews 
steal secretly into the house to hear the Gospel 
of the Lord Jesus, and they actually push each 
other in trying to obtain New Testaments. It 
is the hope of the Christian world that this may 
be the beginning of the breaking up of the old 
Jewish solidity. It is certainly, I think, the 
first time that a portion of the Jewish Church 
has adopted openly the atonement of Christ.” 

“ O,” cried Hadassah, “my people! My poor 
people ! ” 

She burst into tears, and Miss Towne put her 


HADASSAH AND I. 


251 


arm around her, and they went into the library 
and shut the door. 

April 27. — I asked Miss Towne afterward what 
she could say to comfort Hadassah in any way. 

“ I could not comfort her much,” answered 
Miss Towne, “but I told her some things that 
she did not know before. I told her of the 
number of Hebrew New Testaments that have 
been scattered among the Jews of the East. I 
read recently that during the last eight years 
fifty thousand copies of Delitzsch’s Hebrew 
translation of the New Testament have been 
distributed among those Jews. It seems to be 
necessary there to do the work through the He- 
brew language. 

“ I told her, too, of the work that the Lutheran 
societies of Germany, with Professor Franz De- 
litzsch, have been doing in southern Russia. And 
I mentioned the work of the Scottish missions 
among the Jews in Constantinople, where large 
buildings have been erected for the purpose, 
and where numbers of children are being taught. 

“And I showed Hadassah a little newspaper 
clipping that I came across the other day, and had 
saved to show to her. I do not know how reliable 
the figures are, but it is said that the missionary 


252 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

de la Roi, of Breslau, stated that since the begin- 
ningof the nineteenth century one hundred thou- 
sand Jews have been turned from Judaism. 

“Then there is a society in Berlin, and work is 
going on in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and 
Finland. And within a few years there has been 
a Hebrew paper, called Ediithel Israel^ circulated 
in London, and it has done much good service 
in trying to show that Christ is the fulfillment of 
the prophecies of old. 

“ And I told Hadassah, too, of the ‘ London 
Society for Promoting Christianity Among the 
Jews,’ and of their work among the Black Jews, 
or Falashas, of Abyssinia. The society has a 
church in London for Jewish converts, and a 
college to educate missionaries. And Hadassah 
said : ‘ I wish I were there ; I would learn to be a 
missionary.’ 

“ But the one she is most anxious for is her 
father. I told her that she could be a missionary 
here and begin with him.” 

“ Does he object to her being a Christian?” I 
asked. 

“ O, no,” said Miss Towne; “Hadassah was 
afraid that he would at first, and she wrote to 
him about it, telling him how she came to be a 
Christian and asking him to become one. Her 


HADASSAH AND /. 


253 


father wrote back that he had no interest in such 
things, but if it made her happier he was glad. 
She might do what she pleased ; he should not 
interfere.” 

“ Do you believe she will have any influence 
over him ? ” I asked. 

“ I cannot tell,” said Miss Towne. “ Hadas- 
sah is hopeful, and she knows him better than I 
do. She is going to send him a New Testament 
and ask him to study it, and you know, Nellie, 
^ The entrance of Thy words giveth light.’ ” 

May 14. — Miss Towne showed me yesterday a 
clipping that she cut from a religious paper that 
she takes. The clipping was part of an address 
delivered by the same Rabbi Rabinowitz of 
whom Miss Towne told us in her lecture. 

I brought the clipping home for grandma to 
see. She was so interested in every thing I told 
her about Rabbi Rabinowitz that I knew she 
would want to see the clipping, but Miss Towne 
wants it back again, for she is going to give it to 
Hadassah. So I will copy here what the rabbi 
said : 

It was a mighty flood which covered the earth 
in the days of Noah, when God destroyed the 
earth on account of the sins of mankind ; but 


254 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER 7' WO? 

afterward he set the bow in the clouds. But 
greater was the flood which rushed upon the 
heart of the Son of God when he hung upon the 
cross, for he bore the sin of the world, and he 
bore also the unfathomable ocean of my sins. 
And above the dark floods of human sin were the 
clouds of the divine wrath ; the thunders of his 
holiness rolled, and Jesus had to pass through the 
dark depths when he cried : ‘ My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me?’ But above the 
floods of man’s sin and between the clouds of the 
divine wrath I behold the bow of Jesus’s love, and 
the seven words which the Saviour uttered on the 
cross are as the seven colors of the bow. I have 
seen the bow in the clouds, and my soul is saved, 
for this bow is more enduring than even the bow 
of Noah. For heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but Christ’s words shall not pass away.” 

Grandma was delighted when she read the 
cutting. 

And if a Jewish rabbi can be brought to be- 
lieve in Christ and trust in him for personal sal- 
vation, shall I ever again doubt the possibility 
of any one s being converted ? 

May i8. — There! I am Number One again. I 
tell ma that it’s because I study recesses and 


HADASSAH AND I. 


255 


noons. She don’t believe it and wants me to 
fuss with lunches. She sent one over to the 
school-house at noon last week, but I was en- 
deavoring to understand one of Brother Cicero’s 
orations and lunch had no charms for me. I 
didn’t even open the basket, much to Bessie’s 
wrath when I returned home, for the child had 
taken pains to make me some cookies and bake 
them her own self, and she was mortally offended 
to think I hadn’t even tasted one. She knew, for 
she counted them before and after sending. 

Miss Towne came to me to-day at noon. 

“ Why aren ’t you out-doors with the other girls, 
getting some fresh air?” she asked. “ Straighten 
yourself up, Nellie. You’re becoming round- 
shouldered, bending over your books so much. 
Why aren’t you out-doors?” 

“ Got to study,” responded I, never raising my 
eyes from my work. 

“What are you doing?” she demanded. 

“ Finishing my Latin lesson,” I said. “ Miss 
Towne, if you don’t go away I shall fail in this 
lesson.” 

“Well, I’ll go,” said she, laughing; and she 
retreated up the aisle. 

But as she reached the door she turned back and 
said : How much lunch did you eat this noon ? ” 


256 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

I pretended not to hear. 

Miss Towne came back. 

“ Nellie Merritt,” she demanded, “wont you 
answer your teacher? How much lunch did you 
eat this noon ? ” 

“ None,” I said, shortly. 

“ How much breakfast?” she went on. 

“Two biscuit,” I said, impatiently. 

“ Any lunch yesterday ? ” she asked. 

“ No,” said I. 

My Cicero was all mixed up, and I did wish 
she would go. 

“And you were Number One this time,” said 
she. “ How much per cent. ? ” 

“ Ninety-nine,” said I, triumphantly. 

I am rather proud of that, though I didn’t 
tell Miss Towne so. But I guess she saw it in 
me. 

She laughed. 

“ You silly child,” she said, and she went away, 
much to my relief. 

She came back, though, in five minutes with a 
strong cup of coffee. She had made it on the 
little stove in the library where the teachers 
make their tea. She made me drink that coffee. 
She wouldn’t take “ No ” for an answer ; and while 
I drank it I was treated to a first-class scolding. 


HADASSAH AND I. 


257 


I didn’t know Miss Towne could scold so. She 
told me I am a wicked girl, that I have no right 
to be Number One when that honor is purchased 
at the expense of headaches and cold feet and 
sleepless nights and no lunches and nervousness 
and crossness, and she said Hadassah had twice 
as much sense as I, for she takes her recess-time 
for play. 

I don’t believe Miss Towne knew how nervous 
I was, or she wouldn’t have talked quite so se- 
verely. I had been so nervous all day that my 
hands trembled, and when she talked so to me, 
I just put my head down on the desk and cried. 
The coffee-cup tumbled off on the floor, but I’d 
drank all the coffee, so it didn’t matter. 

Miss Towne stopped scolding right away then. 
She was frightened, I guess. She acted so, any- 
way, though I don’t know why she should have 
been. It’s so hard to stop crying when one 
is all worn out that I couldn’t stop for a good 
while. 

But I became cool again before the noon-hour 
was over and I didn’t miss in Latin at all, though 
I was almost sure I should do so after Miss 
Towne had taken up so much of my time. But 
I was perfect. If I can make all my recitations 

perfectly I shall be sure of being Number One. 

17 


258 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

But just before Miss Towne left me she said : 
“ There is a verse in the Bible, Nellie, that I 
would like to call your attention to. It is, ^ Let 
your moderation be known to all men.’ ” 

Then she went off, as though she had given me 
an enigma to solve. 

Well, it isn’t a very hard one, but if that blessed 
woman knew it, her talk hasn’t done a bit of 
good. I shall go on my way studying from morn- 
ing till night, and into the night, too. And I 
believe Miss Towne would do the very same 
thing if she were in my place. I’m just as smart 
as Hadassah — well, I don’t know whether I am 
or not, but anyway I’m going to have it appear 
as if I were. I’m going to be Number One and 
have that valedictory. I should despise myself 
if I didn’t try as hard as possible for it. 

May 19. — There is one thing that I have been 
thinking a great deal about lately. It seems to 
me that I always do my thinking too late. But 
the thought was put into my head by something 
that Mr. Gardner said in his sermon a little 
while ago. It was : “ How long has it been since 
you spoke, asking any one to become a Chris- 
tian ? ” 

That question rather startled me at first. I 


HADASSAH AND /. 


259 


began to think back, and, positively, I could not 
remember asking any one to become a Christian. 
I don’t know when I did such a thing. Of 
course, there was Hadassah. I never asked her 
to be a Christian but once, and that was a year 
and a half ago. I’ve tried to set a good ex- 
ample, that is, in some things, but I have not 
talked. 

So I feel guilty, for I’ve been three years in 
this high-school, and if I ever spoke to many of 
the girls about their souls I don’t remember 
doing so. 

But I did say something yesterday. 

Our class is at work on a picture. It is a copy 
of the “ Stag at Bay,” and we all take turns in 
helping do it in crayon, so that it will represent 
us all. We are going to frame it and leave it in 
the school-room, so that when the folks that 
come after us look up on the wall they will re- 
member this remarkable class. 

Well, yesterday was my turn to stay and draw 
on that picture. Anita superintends u's all. She 
is the only one of us who has a real artist’s eye 
and hand, and she stays with each one and tells 
us all how to do it. 

So she stayed with me yesterday. She is a 
lively little thing, just as funny and merry as she 


26 o number one, or NUMBER TWO? 

can be, and I should have thought that I might 
as well talk to a kitten about religion as to her. 
Not that Anita is foolish or means any thing 
wrong, but she is only full of fun. 

I had no intention of saying any thing to 
Anita, but while I was shading that stag’s back 
I went on thinking and remembering how few 
days more there were in w'hich I could say any 
thing to the girls about being Christians, and I 
almost cried. And Anita noticed it, I guess, for 
she said something about my not working if I 
didn’t feel well. 

And then I cried, really. And I told Anita 
what I had been thinking about, that I had 
neglected my opportunities so, and had never 
even asked the girls if they wouldn’t be 
Christians. 

Anita was still for a minute. She didn’t laugh 
or make fun, the way I was afraid she would, 
though I don’t know that I ever did hear her 
ridicule religious things. And then she said : 
“ I think some of us do try, Nellie.” 

“ Do you ? ” I said. 

“ Yes,” she answered, in a quiet, sober way, 
quite unlike Anita usually ; “ and I ask Him to 
help me, Nellie.” 

Well, I was surprised, and I don’t think we 


HADASSAff AND /. 


261 


have been the Christians that we ought to have 
been, or we would not have sat for three years 
in the same school-rooms, and eaten lunches 
together, and talked of all manner of subjects, 
and never have known that all the time we were 
trying to follow the same Leader. I wonder 
what it is that makes it so much more easy for 
me to help the girls about their Virgil, or show 
them how to do a problem in trigonometry, than 
it is to say five words to them about what is so 
much more important than any study-book. 

The final examinations are just beginning. 
To-morrow is Latin, and day after is English 
literature. We received our monthly report 
cards for the last time yesterday, and, as I wrote, 
I was Number One again. 

Principal Thorn made us a speech after giving 
out those cards. He said that our standing on 
Commencement Day will depend on three things: 
our report cards, our final examination papers, 
and the essays that we hand in for that day. 

So, when we received our cards, we, that is, 
Hadassah and I, and one or two others, set our- 
selves to finding out our average per cent, for the 
year. The rest of the scholars were not so 
anxious, poor things, for they knew that they had 
no chance of standing head, anyway. 


262 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Hadassah told one of the girls what her per 
cent, is for the year, and that girl told me after- 
ward. Hadassah’s is 96 per cent. 

I made out mine, but I did not tell any one 
till noon. But I felt pretty happy. It was 07 
per cent. 

I told Inez at noon, for she rushed to me be- 
fore I could get my lunch-basket off from its 
hook. 

“How much is it? Quick, Nellie, do tell 
me ! ” she cried. 

“ Ninety-seven,” I whispered. 

“ One more than Hadassah’s.” 

Inez caught my arms, and gave me a little 
whirl of excitement. 

“ O, I am so glad ! ” she said, and then she 
ran home, and when she came back she brought 
me a pickled cucumber. 

“That’s for you, Nellie,” she said, “because 
of your one per cent, ahead. O, I know you’ll 
get it ! ” 

And she looked as pleased as if she were the 
one who was to “ get it ” herself. I really be- 
lieve she is as pleased. I couldn’t feel so, I 
know, especially if my father and mother felt the 
way Inez’s parents do. 

“They wish I had your place, Nellie,” said 


• HADASSAH AND /. 


263 


Inez, as we walked the hall arm in arm ; “ but I 
never could get that. They don’t know how 
much smarter you are than I am, or they’d see 
the impossibility of the thing. They don’t say 
much about it, but I know they would be glad if 
I stood where you do. But I am so glad you 
are going to get it ! You’ll write a beautiful 
valedictory.” 

I don’t know whether Inez really “ prefers in 
honor one another,” or whether she never hoped 
to stand Number One, and so doesn’t feel disap- 
pointed at all. Anyway, I should hate to have 
my father and mother want me to be Number 
One, and not be it. 

My father and mother don’t urge me to be 
any higher in my classes than I urge myself. Ma 
looks at me once in awhile, and says : “ Don’t 
study too hard, Nellie.” 

She never says : “ I need your help about the 
housework, so you must not spend so much time 
on your lessons.” 

No ; my ma wouldn’t say that if she worked 
herself sick, as she does pretty often. She knew 
what it was herself to have to come out of school 
just at the time when she ought to have been 
allowed to study. But mother’s older sister 
married, and then grandma thought she couldn’t 


264 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

keep house without the help of one of her girls, 
and so ma had to come out of school. She went 
back again a number of years afterward, but she 
always felt that she ought to have been allowed 
to go younger. So I know that she has done 
ever so much housework that she ought not to 
have done, just to let me have a chance to study, 
and if ever I get through with this high-school 
I’ll pay her back ! I believe that what I heard 
Principal Thorn say the other day is true : 
“ American women are the most self-denying 
people on the face of the earth, in sacrificing 
themselves for their children.” 

As for pa’s urging me on, he wouldn’t think of 
such a thing. All I do, anyway, is right, in his 
eyes. One day, at the beginning of this term, I 
was in his office, and I boldly announced to him 
that I was going to try for the valedictory. He 
was looking over a learned work on “ Measles,” 
and I didn’t think that he understood what I said, 
V so I repeated it. , 

And pa slowly comprehended that he was 
being spoken to, and he raised his eyes, ran his 
hand through his hair, pushed back his specs, 
and said : “ What did you say, child ? ” 

So I repeated the statement that I intended to 
stand first in my class Commencement Day. 


HAD ASSAM AND /. 


265 


Pa gave a little nod, looked at me with an air 
of pride in being owner of such an astonishingly 
brilliant daughter, and said : “ I have no doubt 
you can do any thing you want to, Nellie.” 

Then his gaze fell on that entrancing 
“ Measles ” book, and his eyes assumed a far- 
away expression, and I knew his thoughts were 
with measles, not me. 

Nevertheless, I know that even if I were foot 
of my class, instead of head, and had written the 
pokiest essay that could be invented, my pa 
would sit in the audience that day and enjoy 
every word I read. 

Not that he isn’t smart himself. Doesn’t he 
write the most wonderful papers on tumors and 
things for that medical society? Didn’t one of 
the city doctors praise up ah article of pa’s, and 
weren’t three of them published in some medical 
journal ? He’s the smartest man I ever saw, but 
he can’t see stupidity when it’s in any of his 
children. So, if Widow Flariarty’s children 
don’t have fits just the wrong day, and if Pat 
Ganagan’s red-headed boys don’t have any 
accidents, such as happen to them almost every 
week, the boys thinking nothing of such little 
affairs as putting a finger out of joint, or having 
one chopped off, or almost burning out their eyes 


266 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

with gunpowder; then, if every body will let pa 
alone, he will be here Commencement Day. 
Nothing but some old patient will keep him 
away, and it will just spoil every thing if he can’t 
come. The help that man has been to me these 
three years ! Why, if ever I got into such a 
hard place in my books that I couldn’t help my- 
self, out I went to him, and no matter if he had 
been up half a dozen nights with patients, he 
would sit down and straighten out things for me. 
Hasn’t he helped me about many and many a 
lesson in algebra, and demonstrated many a 
geometry proposition, when he ought to have 
been in bed that minute ? And didn’t he sit up 
one midnight and explain to me how to scan 
Virgil? Commencement wont be of any ac- 
count if he can’t be there with ma and grand- 
ma and Bessie. Those four are my audience, 
and I am afraid that Hadassah hasn’t as many as 
that who really care about her. 

May 20. — I am too busy to write more than a 
few words. I have studied night and day late- 
ly. I believe that I know Bain's Rhetoric by 
heart. I’m positive I can recite dozens of pages 
perfectly. I can see them without any book. 

I pity any one who has not kept up with the 


HADASSAH AND I. 267 

lessons this term. There is no chance now for 
learning much. All one can do is to review. 

I am sure I must have been perfect in the 
final Latin examination, unless I tripped a little 
in scanning Virgil. But I think I didn’t. 

Hadassah looked scared over a translation of 
one of Cicero’s orations. I saw her. She looked 
as worried as could be. 

We have handed in our final essays for Com- 
mencement. I never had so much trouble in 
picking out a subject for an essay. I had started 
half a dozen, but none of them suited. We 
have had to write so many compositions for the 
rhetoric class lately that all my ideas are gone. 

Afternoon . — It seems to me that I never in 
my life had such trouble with an essay as I have 
had with the final one. And, after all, Princi- 
pal Thorn wont let me have it for a final one. 
I wrote my essay at last in desperation and 
handed it in, but this noon Principal Thorn 
came to me and said : “ Can I see you a minute, 
Nellie?” 

So we went off to one of the windows. I 
knew he was going to say something about that 
essay. We have so small a class that Principal 
Thorn has decided that all the essays must be 


268 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

read Commencement, and that makes him very 
particular. Quite a number of us have had re- 
jected essays, or else have been requested to 
write portions of our essays over. 

Inez had been crying over hers. It was on 
“ Old Houses,” and the Latin teacher had cor- 
rected it till it was one mass of pencil-marks. 

Poor Inez ! But he said he thought the sub- 
ject was good enough, only he wanted every 
thing written just to suit him. I was quite 
thankful that my essay was corrected by Princi- 
pal Thorn himself. He is more lenient. 

Well, Principal Thorn looked at me when we 
came to the window, and he smiled, and tried 
to make the blow as light a one as possible. 
But he needn’t. I felt in my bones what was 
coming. 

“ Nellie,” said he, “I read your essay, and it 
does not seem to me that you have done your- 
self justice in it. I am sure I have seen compo- 
sitions of yours that were better than this,” and 
he took my poor production out of his pocket. 

“You would do well to write another,” he 
went on. “ Can’t you write one about ‘ Woman’s 
Part of the World’s Work,’ or something like 
that? Several years ago one of the graduates 
of this high-school wrote an essay on some such 


HABASSAH AND /. 


269 


subject, and it made quite a sensation when she 
read it. The audience were greatly interested. 
You had better write on ‘ What Girls Can Do.’ ” 

Then he walked off and left me with my poor 
essay in my hand, and I felt a good deal like fol- 
lowing Inez’s example and sitting down and cry- 
ing. For I am so tired, and I haven’t an idea 
in my head, and that essay must be written. 

I don’t know any thing about “ What Girls 
Can Do,” and I don’t believe I’ll write on that. 

May 22. — I’ve written another. It’s on “ Im- 
agination.” It’s a fearful subject and a fearful 
essay. But I cannot do any better. I wish that 
I had begun two years ago to write my final es- 
say. I might possibly have evolved something 
decent out of my brain by now. 

Hadassah looks as tranquil as though Princi- 
pal Thorn had praised her essay. I presume he 
has. Anyway, I know she has not been required 
to write her essay over. 

May 23. — I have been handing my autograph 
album around to the different teachers to have 
each write in it. A pretty time the poor things 
have nowadays trying to write “sentiments” 
enough to fill the albums of this class of seniors. 


270 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

If I’m ever a teacher I shall keep a list of 
“ sentiments,” or moral injunctions, or some- 
thing of the sort, for the albums that are always 
being handed to teachers, and then, when the 
scholars bother me, I shall know what to write. 
It would not do for a teacher to write merely 
her name. The scholar would be disappointed. 

But though it must have been a bore, not one 
of the teachers made up a face when I came 
along with my album. All smiled, even the 
history teacher, and all said, ‘‘ Certainly, Nellie,” 
which was very obliging in them, I am sure. 

Of course, Principal Thorn wrote me a piece 
of solemn advice. I didn’t expect any thing 
else from him. It is my opinion that Principal 
Thorn has a scrap-book somewhere filled with 
sermons and moral reflections, and that, on oc- 
casion, he drags out that scrap-book and cuts 
off the piece of moral that is needed. Of course, 
I have never seen that scrap-book, but I don’t 
need to. I feel positively certain of its exist- 
ence. 

He wrote this quotation from Chalmers : 

“ Live for something. Do good, and leave 
behind you a monument of virtue that the 
storms of time can never destroy. 

“Write your name in kindness, in love, and in 


HADASSAH AND I. 


271 


mercy on the hearts of thousands you come in 
contact with year by year; you will never be 
forgotten.” 

I suppose that Principal Thorn tries to live 
up to that advice himself. I do not know 
whether he has written his name “ in kindness, 
in love, and in mercy ” on my heart or not, but 
I have not any grudge against him. He is al- 
ways pleasant enough, a fact that is to be set 
down to his credit, for I suppose it is hard work 
for teachers to be always pleasant. I guess he 
has his nerves pretty well under control. Never 
has he said one cross word to me while I have 
been in this high-school, and I don’t think that 
he deserved the present of a pickle that a girl 
left on his desk the other day. I saw her do it, 
but I never thought of his taking it as a reflec- 
tion on his temper; but he did, and looked very 
glum for a day or so. I suppose he wondered 
what he had done, poor man. Come to find out, 
the senior class last year left some pickles on his 
desk with the deliberate intention of reminding 
him to be more pleasant, and he had some 
trouble with them on that account. But he did 
not say any thing this time. Perhaps he begins 
to fear that he is to have pickles yearly from the 


seniors. 


272 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Grandma said she thought Principal Thorn’s 
quotation in my book was very good. So do I, 
really. 

And Professor Hazelton evidently feared that 
he had been too frightful an instructor, for sev- 
eral days after I left my album with him he 
walked down the aisle during study hour, and 
left my album on my desk. Then he went on 
down to the window and stood looking out till 
I had had time to read what he had written 
and slip the album into my desk. This was 
what he had written in it: 

“ When school tasks are done, let the ‘ task- 
master’ be to your remembrance thereafter 
nothing but ‘ friend.’ ” 

Well, he needn’t worry. He hasn’t been any 
thing but “ friend ” ever since that awful day 
when he helped me out of that fix about Whit- 
tier’s “ River Path.” And I guess that the rea- 
son why he appears so prim and stiff is that he 
was brought up that way. Why, he must have 
had a fearfully strict father, I think, for Profes- 
sor Hazelton said once that his father made him 
study Latin and Greek when he was only a lit- 
tle fellow, and he not only had to translate, but 
to learn things so as to recite them in' the tongue 
they were written in. Professor Hazelton says 


HADASSAH AND /. 


273 


that he learned Cicero’s orations so he could say 
them word for word, and he learned them so 
thoroughly that even after he became a man he 
could go through with some of them without 
looking at the book. I am thankful that we 
have not been compelled to learn Latin that 
way. I don’t know what would have become 
of my head if I had had to learn the Latin w'ord 
for word. It has been enough to try to trans- 
late decently. 

Well, the prim history teacher wrote in my 
album, too, of course. She almost always looks 
cross, and I am sure I should too, if I had to 
teach history and keep dates in my head. One 
date always seems to me so much like another 
that I can’t keep them separate. I can cram 
for examination, though, and so I usually get 
through all right, but once I forgot all about the 
Thirty Years’ War. Couldn’t remember when 
it started, or why, or where. I expect she 
thought it was dreadful in me, when she looked 
over my examination paper. Well, she wont 
have to look over any more of them, that’s one 
comfort ; and I know I shall forget every date 
after I leave school, but I can remember the 
stories. I wish history were all stories, then I 

shouldn’t have any trouble. 

18 


274 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Well, the history teacher wrote some verses 
from Proverbs in my album, so I guess she isn’t 
so bad after all. The verses were : 

“ Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and lift- 
est up thy voice for understanding ; 

“ If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest 
for her as for hid treasures ; 

“ Then shalt thou understand the fear of the 
Lord, and find the knowledge of God. 

“ For the Lord giveth wisdom.” 

And underneath she wrote : “ The best under- 
standing, the best knowledgey 

Well, I hope I have the kind she means. But 
as for book knowledge, I am almost ashamed of 
myself ; but I suppose the feeling comes from my 
brain being so tired. But I do not believe that 
I shall want to look into a book for six months 
after leaving school. I am so tired of studying 
or even reading. 

We have all had our pictures taken, and have 
given them to each other. Mine looks horrid, 
I think. One of the boys looks as if he had a 
stiff neck, the man fixed him up so straight. The 
teachers had to have their pictures taken, too, 
and the music-teacher came and gave me his the 
other day. He said he did not like it, but I told 
him it looked like him. So he said he supposed 


HADASSAH AND I. 


275 


he ought to be satisfied. I had to sing scales 
and things out in the hall to him the other day. 
It was part of our final examination in music. 
Each of us had to go out separately and sit on a 
seat and sing, while each knew that the rest of 
the seniors were inside the door in the class- 
room, listening and giggling, especially when 
some of the boys sang. It sounded funny. I 
don’t believe we got any credits for it, either. It 
was only the music-teacher’s notion, for we had a 
written examination in music before. One of the 
boys made a rhyme about our singing. It was: 

“No more shall we, at sternest duty’s call, 

Sing scales to Mr. out in the hall.” 

But I guess none of us are very sorry that we 
shall do it “ no more.” In fact, I think we are 
a very unsentimental class. Almost all the sen- 
timental ones dropped out by the way. The 
work was too hard, and those of us v/ho have 
waded through it have had all the sentiment tak- 
en out of us to such a degree that but very few of 
us can even sigh to think that we soon may never 
meet within these walls again. Really, I think 
we are secretly rather glad of it, although the 
valedictorian, whoever that fortunate mortal is, 
will have to do some groaning for us in public on 
Commencement Day for the looks of the thing. 


276 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

I told one of the girls the other day that if I 
were valedictorian I wouldn’t go and say the 
same thing valedictorians always say — a lot of 
stuff to the Board of Education about being 
grateful to them for their care over us, etc., etc. ; 
then a passage of thanks to the “ dear teachers ” 
for their kindness and patience “ during the 
past years ; ” and finally a tearful passage to 
the “ beloved classmates” about going out into 
the “ school of life ” and never seeing each other 
any more. 

I intended what I said for that girl’s private 
ear. I had no idea that she would repeat it. 
But what did that girl do but once in school- 
time, when there wasn’t any teacher in the room, 
and when the scholars were, a good many of 
them, talking and whispering, turn around in her 
seat and repeat what I had said, so that all the 
class could hear ! I was mortified, for it looked 
as though I thought I was surely going to get 
that valedictory. I looked over at Hadassah, 
but she didn’t seem to be listening to any thing. 
She was deep in a problem. 

The class laughed, though I am afraid we don’t 
set a very good example to the other classes. It 
is so near the end of school that we can hardly 
wait for things to be over. The class have “ cut 


HADASSAH AND I. 


277 


up ” dreadfully lately, when the teachers have 
not been in the room. Several weeks ago Prin- 
cipal Thorn caught us, though. I don’t mean 
that I myself have acted very badly. All I 
have done is just to whisper a little. I haven’t 
done that before since I have been in the high- 
school, but I just feel as though I must do some- 
thing, I ’m so excited over getting through school. 
Nina said something to me and I answered, and 
she looked surprised for a minute, and then she 
called over to Frank, and she said : “ Frank, 
you can talk to Nellie now. She’ll answer you.” 

And poor Frank was so taken by surprise that 
he stared a minute, and all he could think of to 
say was : “ Nellie, do you believe that the moon 
is made of green cheese ? ” 

I don’t know what did ail us all that after- 
noon. But I do know that after awhile, when 
there had been a good deal of laughing, suddenly 
there was an awful noise in one corner of the 
room. I think one of the boys must have tipped 
over something. Anyway, it made a dreadful 
racket, and all of a sudden the folding-doors flew 
open and there stood Principal Thorn looking at 
us ! 

Every thing was still in a minute. And the way 
Principal Thorn looked ! And the way he talked ! 


278 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

He shut those folding-doors so that the mid- 
dle class could not see, and then he went to his 
desk and talked to us about our being the senior 
class of the high-school, young ladies and gen- 
tlemen, and yet we couldn’t be trusted alone 
a few minutes while the teacher was out of the 
room. 

Then he demanded who it was who made that 
noise? Well, the boys wouldn’t tell of one an- 
other, and I really didn’t know, and I guess a good 
many of the girls didn’t. And Principal Thorn 
at last pitched upon a boy we call by the nick- 
name of “ Pendulum.” Now I knew he didn’t 
do it. He is a very bashful boy, and he sits only 
two seats behind me. There isn’t any body sit- 
ting between us, so some of the girls who like to 
plague him make believe that every time he 
raises his eyes from his book he is looking at me. 
One of the girls once announced out loud that 
“ Pendulum ” sat and looked at Nellie’s curls all 
the time. 

And I heard the poor fellow remonstrate in a 
low tone, saying : “ Be still. She’ll think — ” 

Well, “ Pendulum ” told Principal Thorn 
that he didn’t do it. And Principal Thorn asked 
who did it, then. “ Pendulum ” wouldn’t tell. 
Then Principal Thorn said that “ Pendulum ” 


HADASSAH AND I. 


279 


would have to lose credits, anyway. He would 
have to bear the blame of the whole. 

Well, of course, the whole class felt horribly 
over that. But Principal Thorn sounded the 
gong for noon recess, and left that as his final 
decision. 

But the girls talked it over at noon, and by 
and by they came in a body to me and asked 
me if I wouldn’t go with them and be spokes- 
man, or spokeswoman, rather, to Principal 
Thorn, to tell him that Pendulum ” didn’t 
do it. 

I didn’t like to very well, but the girls teased, 
and I knew it was true that “ Pendulum ” hadnt 
done it, so I agreed, and we all started to find 
Principal Thorn. 

We found him at one of the windows, and 
when he turned on us with an aggrieved face I 
informed him that the girls wanted me to tell 
him that “ Pendulum ” didn’t do it. 

“ Who did it, then ? ” asked Principal Thorn, 
with a severe frown. 

“ I don’t know,” I said, turning redder than 
ever, and wishing I had not undertaken the 
job. 

But then the girls all began to talk, and kind 
of pat poor Principal Thorn’s feelings down, so at 


28 o number one, or number two? 

last he very stiffly consented to remove the 
burden of blame from poor “ Pendulum ” and 
have it rest equally upon each member of the 
class. When we came together again that 
afternoon Principal Thorn announced that he 
should give us each ten demerits. So I hope 
poor “ Pendulum ” felt that he was not the black 
sheep of the flock. That is the reason why the 
last number in the “ deportment ” column of my 
monthly report card reads “ninety” instead of 
“ one hundred,” as usual. But as the credits 
were taken from us each, bad and good alike, it 
didn’t make any difference about the being 
Number One or Number Two. 

But I felt that I deserved the demerits, be- 
cause I whispered; Tm not going to do it any 
more, but I do wish school were through. 

“ Pendulum” wrote in my album. He wrote, 
“ Time flies,” a very true saying. 

O, yes. I forgot all about Miss Towne. She 
wrote in my album, of course ; only I was rather 
surprised at her selection. It sounds just as 
though she had an idea that I care too much 
about being praised, and being ahead of other 
folks, and not enough about doing right. It was 
this from Schiller : 


HADASSAH AND I. 


281 


“Fame and Duty.” 

“ What shall I do, lest life in silence pass } ” 

“ And if it do, 

And never prompt the bray of noisy brass. 
What need’st thou rue } 

Remember, aye the ocean deeps are mute ; 
The shallows roar ; 

Worth is the ocean — fame is but the bruit 
Along the shore.” 

“ What shall I do to be forever known } ” 


“ Thy duty ever.” 

“ This did full many who yet slept unknown.” 

“ O, never, never ! 

Think’st thou perchance that they remain unknown 
Whom thou know’st not? 

By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown — 

Divine their lot.” 

I asked Miss Towne afterward whether she 
considered me in such danger of caring more for 
praise and fame than for doing my duty at all 
times, and she smiled a little, and said : “ Do not 
you think that that is a temptation to which we are 
all liable, Nellie ? We are shocked when we read 
the plain testimony of John in regard to the chief 
rulers, when he says that they ‘ loved the praise of 
men more than the praise of God.’ And yet of 
how many of us might that be said at times ! ” 


282 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

Miss Towne said, afterward: “I did not put 
into your album what Schiller answers next to 
the question: ‘What shall I do to gain eternal 
life ? ’ because I do not like Schiller’s answer. It 
savors too much of self-righteousness, as though 
one could deserve heaven by one’s own good 
works. Besides, Nellie, I think you know Christ’s 
answer to that question.” 

It will seem rather queer not to have Miss 
Towne to preach at me a few months hence. I 
suppose I must get used to preaching to myself. 
The trouble is that I do not feel obliged to mind 
my own preaching very much. 

Last Sunday in church our minister said one 
thing that I did not like at all. May be it is true, 
but I do not like to think so. He was talking 
about “Character.” Perhaps it was not an ex- 
pression original with him, but he said : “ A 
chain is as strong as its weakest link.” 

Now I know of — well, two or three — very 
weak places in my character, but I don’t like to 
think that the whole thing is as weak as those 
two or three or more places are. 

May 26. — I didn’t write in this journal yester- 
day. I could not calm myself enough to write 
connectedly. 


HADASSAH AND /. 


283 


I was sitting at my desk yesterday afternoon 
looking at my last bit of Cicero’s orations, when 
the door opened and Principal Thorn stood in 
the doorway. He looked us all over for a min- 
ute in that queer way of his, and then he said : 
“Nellie Merritt, will you come into the hall a 
moment ?” 

So up I rose, and the scholars around me 
began to buzz a little, for Principal Thorn had 
gone out, and no other teacher was in the room. 

“Now you’ll know about the valedictory,” 
whispered Inez as I went by her desk. 

Trembling with excitement I went into the 
hall. I knew well enough that my fate had 
been decided. I was either One or Two. 

Principal Thorn stood in the hall waiting. He 
shut the door behind me as I came out, and then 
he looked at me and said: “ Nellie, I want you 
to write the salutatory this afternoon. You had 
better go up into the cupola where no one will 
disturb you, and after school I will see what you 
have written.” 

So I was to be Number Two after all. 

I couldn’t answer him. I put my hand on 
the door-knob. The hall whirled around for a 
minute. 

“ Don’t go back to the school-room,” he said. 


284 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

“Go up stairs. You have not much time. It 
is two o’clock now.” 

“ I must go back to my desk to get pencil and 
paper,” I said, faintly ; and as he made no fur- 
ther objection I slipped into the school-room. 

“ Did you get it ? Are you valedictorian ? O, 
Nellie, do speak just this once ! Never mind 
about rules now,” whispered Inez, eagerly, as I 
went down the aisle. 

“Shake your head.” 

“ Nod.” 

“Write. Talk on your fingers.’ 

“ Put it on the blackboard.” 

“ Do something, Nellie,” came from the girls, 
as they turned around in their seats and looked 
at me. 

But I gave no sign, only after I had rummaged 
around in my desk and found a pencil and paper, 
and was going out, something made me look at 
Hadassah. 

She was watching me in a curious way, with a 
queer sort of half smile on her face. 

I smiled back at her. I made myself do it, 
but I am afraid that I hated her just that min- 
ute. But I walked out of the school-room in as 
composed a manner as could be. 

I shut the school-room door, hurried along the 


HADASSAH AND /. 


285 

hall, opened the door leading up stairs, ran up 
the flight leading to the cupola, and sat down. 

Didn’t I feel horribly ! 

I blazed all over my mind, if you know how 
that feels. What months and months of toil I 
had spent ! How I had worked and denied my- 
self! And now Hadassah was to be Number 
One ! 

I did not cry — that is, not at first. I would 
not have had any of the scholars see my eyes red 
for any thing. But I do believe that hour in the 
cupola was the blackest I ever spent since I be- 
came a Christian. 

“ I hate Hadassah,” I said, bitterly, over and 
over. “ I hate her — I hate her 1 ” 

“ I ought to be Number One,” I cried to my- 
self, stamping my foot on the old floor. “ I be- 
lieve Principal Thorn just does it on purpose, 
because he likes Hadassah better than he does 
me. It’s cheating! It isn’t fair, nor right, nor 
just ! ” 

And I almost said to myself that I would go 
down and raise a fuss about it, and tell the prin- 
cipal that if I couldn’t have the first place I 
wouldn’t have any at all, and they might get on 
without me Commencement Day. And then I 
thought how disappointed father would be if I 


286 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

didn’t read my essay, and that thought kept me 
from doing any thing rash. But I was a great 
deal more excited and angry and unhappy than a 
Christian has any right to be about any thing in 
this world. In fact, when I think of yesterday 
I am very much ashamed of you, Nellie Merritt. 

Well, will you believe it, right into the midst 
of my angry thoughts, as I stood at the window 
looking out at the purple hills and the blue sky 
and the white clouds, and never seeing a bit of 
any thing that I was looking at, there came to 
me that dreadful bit of Romans : “ In honor pre- 
ferring one another.” 

It couldn’t have shocked me more if some one 
had struck me. 

And I stood there and thought a great many 
thoughts that I ought to have thought before, 
and then, my Journal, I cried as hard as ever I 
could cry. And I believe that part of that cry, 
at least, was a prayer. May be no one would 
believe it, but I think that the best lesson that I 
ever learned in that high-school wasn’t learned 
in the junior or middle or senior class-rooms, but 
away up stairs there in the cupola. 

After I had cried I felt better, and I picked 
up my pencil and paper and thought as hard as 
I could. 


HAD ASS AH AND I. 


287 


But it was not very easy work to write even a 
salutatory, and by the time that school was over 
I had written only about six lines. I could not 
possibly think of another idea. So, after I was 
sure that all the scholars were gone, I slipped 
down stairs and washed my face in the girls’ 
cloak-room, and I found that I did not look as 
if I had been crying, and so I went in search of 
Principal Thorn. 

He \jias drilling one of the boys on his ora- 
tion for Commencement. When that was over 
Principal Thorn read my six lines, and then he 
made some suggestions about the rest of the 
salutatory. He told me to put in something 
about our being grateful to the teachers for all 
the pains they had taken with us scholars in the 
past three years. I thought that was rather a 
funny thing for him to suggest for me to say, as 
long as he is one of the teachers himself. But, 
then, I suppose it is the proper thing, so I am 
going to put it in. 

But I needed all the good resolutions I had 
made, for I found out something to-day that 
hurt my feelings very much for the minute. 
What I found out is that last Saturday night 
Principal Thorn told Hadassah that she was to 
be head of the class, and yet it was Tuesday 


288 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

before I knew my position. But I don’t think 
that was Principal Thorn’s fault, after all, for he 
has been so busy and so worried with all the final 
examinations of the classes that it is no wonder 
he didn’t tell me before. So now I am just go- 
ing to bottle up my feelings and keep still. They 
hurt, though. I wonder if that isn’t a “ mixed 
metaphor,” as Miss Towne would say ; but I can’t 
stop to fix it. 

But when I was going down stairs I heard an- 
other thing that made me glad I had not showed 
what I felt. I heard Hadassah say down low to 
Inez : 

“ Do you suppose that Nellie hates me ? ” 

“No, I don’t,” answered Inez, promptly. 
“Why, Hadassah, Nellie is a Christian. You 
know she is, and it isn’t Christian to hate.” 

“No, I know it isn’t,” said Hadassah, hesita- 
tingly; “but I was afraid Nellie might forget that.” 

And then they passed on out of hearing. 

No, “ it isn’t Christian to hate,” and I wont do 
it. I have to choke down my feelings every half 
hour, it seems to me. I didn’t know that I was 
such a creature. And the “preferring one an- 
other in honor” wasn’t done until I was com- 
pelled to do it ; that is the most humiliating 
thing of all. Twelve communion seasons a year; 


HADASSAH AND /. 


289 


three years since I entered this high-school ; 
thirty-six careful readings of that twelfth chap- 
ter of Romans, and yet not do that thing until I 
was compelled to ! 

May 29. — Commencement Day, that wonder- 
ful day that I have looked forward to all the 
year, is over at last. It wasn’t so very dreadful 
to be salutatorian, after all. I was rather glad 
to come first on the programme, because I did 
not have to sit and dread it the way some had 
to whose essays came toward the last. Besides, 
the audience was not tired out when I read as 
they were by the time Hadassah was reached. 

Father and mother and Bessie and grandma 
and Mr. and Mrs. Gardner were there, and they 
were the ones I spoke to, not the crowd. I 
didn’t care very much what they thought. I 
wanted my six to be suited. They came early, 
so I got them a beautiful place to see — right be- 
fore the speakers’ stand. 

I put something in my essay about the “ way 
that has been provided for us for salvation.” I 
saw two or three of the girls look at one another 
when I came to that. They smiled, and I know 
that if they had expressed their feelings they 

would have said : “ What poor taste ! ” 

19 


290 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

But it came in easily enough, and, if I have 
neglected so many opportunities of speaking to 
the girls these last years, I wasn’t going to neg- 
lect the last opportunity, too. So I put that 
into my essay, and when Mr. Gardner came to 
shake hands with me afterward he said, pleas- 
antly: ‘^I am glad you showed your colors, 
Nellie.” 

They let the audience applaud at first, though 
Principal Thorn forbade it after awhile, because 
it disturbed other classes down stairs. Pa had 
a judge with him, and clapped himself when I 
was through, and the audience began. I sup- 
pose the judge thought he had to do as pa did, 
so he clapped, too. I know my pa never would 
have the remotest idea that it wasn’t quite 
proper for him to join the audience in applaud- 
ing his daughter. I don’t suppose that such a 
thing ever entered his head, he was so excited 
and pleased over my performance. Actually, I 
don’t believe he thought about his office and 
measles and scarlet fever and broken bones dur- 
ing the whole performance. 

Principal Thorn came to me afterward to give 
me my final report card. 

“ All the others beside you have had their 
cards, Nellie,” he said. “I want to make you 


HADASSAH AND I. 


291 


an explanation of your standing. You stood a 
little higher than Hadassah in the report card for 
the term and in your final examinations. But 
her essay was what made the difference. I con- 
sidered that hers was better than yours, and you 
know I said the three things should decide the 
standing for Commencement. So I gave her the 
valedictory and you the salutatory.” 

Well, Hadassah ’s essay was fine. I couldn’t 
have begun to have written it myself. I didn’t 
wonder at her being valedictorian when I heard 
her read it. But I was sorry for her, because 
out of that great crowd she had only one who 
really cared for what she read, and that was her 
father. 

Well, the music-teacher shook hands with me, 
and said, “ Success,” and Miss Towne laughed 
when she saw how full my arms were of the 
flowers that folks had brought me, and we all 
said “ good-bye,” and the Latin teacher delighted 
father’s heart by telling him that I had been “a 
wonderfully accurate scholar, translating with 
precision-.” And then we all got into the car- 
riage and drove home. 

June I. — That was the end, I thought. But 
yesterday Mrs. Gardner came to me as I finished 


292 NUMBER ONE, OR NUMBER TWO? 

teaching my Sabbath-school class, and she gave 
me a roll, saying : “ Mr. Gardner wanted me to 
hand this to you.” 

When I went home and unrolled it I found 
that it was a picture of a white cross on a black 
background, and on the back of the picture was 
written : 

“ Commencement Day, May 29, 18- 

And below those words was that verse of 
Adelaide Procter’s : 

“ Glorious it is to wear the crown 
Of a deserved and pure success ; 

He who knows how to fail has won 
A crown whose luster is not less.” 


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